Messenger ribonucleic acid of the lipoprotein of the Escherichia coli outer membrane. II. The complete nucleotide sequence.

The complete nucleotide sequence of the mRNA for the outer membrane lipoprotein from Escherichia coli has been determined. All the ribonuclease T1 and ribonuclease A fragments obtained from the mRNA were connected with DNA sequencing of restriction endonuclease fragments of the cloned lipoprotein gene. The mRNA consists of 322 nucleotides, and there are 38 and 50 nucleotides in the 5' and 3' end untranslated regions, respectively. The mRNA has several unique features: (a) Out of 50 possible codons for 15 amino acids in the prolipoprotein only 25 codons are used, and all of these appear to be read by the major isoaccepting species of tRNAs for individual amino acids. (b) In the first 64 nucleotides from the 5' end, there are no obvious secondary structures. On the other hand, between the 65th nucleotide and the 3' end, 85% of the nucleotides are involved in the formation of secondary structures, with nine stable stem-and-loop structures. (c) There are many repeating sequences including one repeat of 40 nucleotides. (d) There are a few other features which could be important for efficient translation of the mRNA.