Rate-limiting hydrolysis in ribosomal release reactions revealed by ester activation

Translation terminates by releasing the polypeptide chain in one of two chemical reactions catalyzed by the ribosome. Release is also a target for engineering, as readthrough of a stop codon enables incorporation of unnatural amino acids and treatment of genetic diseases. Hydrolysis of the ester bond of peptidyl-tRNA requires conformational changes of both a class I release factor (RF) protein and the peptidyl transferase center of a large subunit rRNA. The rate-limiting step was proposed to be hydrolysis at physiological pH and an RF conformational change at higher pH, but evidence was indirect. Here, we tested this by activating the ester electrophile at the Escherichia coli ribosomal P site using a trifluorine-substituted amino acid. Quench-flow kinetics revealed that RF1-catalyzed release could be accelerated, but only at pH 6.2-7.7 and not higher pH. This provided direct evidence for rate-limiting hydrolysis at physiological or lower pH and a different rate limitation at higher pH. Additionally, we optimized RF-free release catalyzed by unacylated tRNA or the CCA trinucleotide (in 30% acetone). We determined that these two model release reactions, although very slow, were surprisingly accelerated by the trifluorine analog but to a different extent from each other and from RF-catalyzed release. Hence, hydrolysis was rate limiting in all three reactions. Furthermore, in 20% ethanol, we found that there was significant competition between fMet-ethyl ester formation and release in all three release reactions. We thus favor proposed mechanisms for translation termination that do not require a fully-negatively-charged OH(−) nucleophile.