We present the sequence of the 26S rRNA of the yeast Saccharomyces carlsbergensis as inferred from the gene sequence. The molecule is 3393 nucleotides long and consists of 48% G+C; 30 of the 43 methyl groups can be located in the sequence. Starting from the recently proposed structure of E. coli 23S rRNA (see ref. 25) we constructed a secondary structure model for yeast 26S rRNA. This structure is composed of 7 domains closed by long-range base pairings as n the bacterial counterpart. Most domains show considerable conservation of the overall structure; unpaired regions show extended sequence homology and the base-paired regions contain many compensating base pair changes. The extra length of the yeast molecule is due to a number of insertions in most of the domains, particularly in domain II. Domain VI, which is extremely conserved, is probably part of the ribosomal A site. alpha-Sarcin, which apparently inhibits the EF-1 dependent binding of aminoacyl-tRNA, causes a cleavage between position 3025 and 3026 in a conserved loop structure, just outside domain VI. Nearly all of the located methyl groups, like in E. coli, are present in domain II, V and VI and clustered to a certain extent mainly in regions with a strongly conserved primary structure. The only three methyl groups of 26S rRNA which are introduced relatively late during the processing are found in single stranded loops in domain VI very close to positions which have been shown in E. coli 23S rRNA to be at the interface of the ribosome.

Two independent, three-dimensional structures of yeast tRNAAsp, mainly differing by the conformation of the D loop, have been obtained from a multiple isomorphous replacement (MIR) X-ray analysis at 3.5-A resolution. The folding of the ribose-phosphate backbone is similar to that found for tRNAPhe; major differences concern the relative positioning of the acceptor and anticodon stems, and the conformation of the loops in the two molecules. Crystal packing involves self-complementary GUC anticodon interactions.

Recent progress in the nucleotide sequence analysis of the 16S ribosomal RNA from E. coli is described. The sequence which has been partially or completely determined so far encompasses 1520 nucleotides, i.e. about 95% of the molecule. Possible features of the secondary structure are suggested on the basis of the nucleotide sequence and data on sequence heterogeneities, repetitions and the location of modified nucleotides are presented. In the accompanying paper, the use of the nucleotide sequence data in studies of the ribosomal protein binding sites is described.