Mitochondrial ribosomal protein L18 explained

39S ribosomal protein L18, mitochondrial is a protein that in humans is encoded by the MRPL18 gene.^{[1] [2] [3]}

Mammalian mitochondrial ribosomal proteins are encoded by nuclear genes and help in protein synthesis within the mitochondrion. Mitochondrial ribosomes (mitoribosomes) consist of a small 28S subunit and a large 39S subunit. They have an estimated 75% protein to rRNA composition compared to prokaryotic ribosomes, where this ratio is reversed. Another difference between mammalian mitoribosomes and prokaryotic ribosomes is that the latter contain a 5S rRNA. Among different species, the proteins comprising the mitoribosome differ greatly in sequence, and sometimes in biochemical properties, which prevents easy recognition by sequence homology. This gene encodes a 39S subunit protein that belongs to the L18P ribosomal protein family. Three polymorphic sites exist in this gene, one of which is three nt in length which causes an extra aa near the N-terminus.

Further reading

• Hartley JL, Temple GF, Brasch MA . DNA cloning using in vitro site-specific recombination. . Genome Res. . 10 . 11 . 1788–95 . 2001 . 11076863 . 10.1101/gr.143000 . 310948 .
• Wiemann S, Weil B, Wellenreuther R, etal . Toward a catalog of human genes and proteins: sequencing and analysis of 500 novel complete protein coding human cDNAs. . Genome Res. . 11 . 3 . 422–35 . 2001 . 11230166 . 10.1101/gr.GR1547R . 311072 .
• Kenmochi N, Suzuki T, Uechi T, etal . The human mitochondrial ribosomal protein genes: mapping of 54 genes to the chromosomes and implications for human disorders. . Genomics . 77 . 1–2 . 65–70 . 2001 . 11543634 . 10.1006/geno.2001.6622 .
• Strausberg RL, Feingold EA, Grouse LH, etal . Generation and initial analysis of more than 15,000 full-length human and mouse cDNA sequences. . Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. . 99 . 26 . 16899–903 . 2003 . 12477932 . 10.1073/pnas.242603899 . 139241 . 2002PNAS...9916899M . free .
• Zhang Z, Gerstein M . Identification and characterization of over 100 mitochondrial ribosomal protein pseudogenes in the human genome. . Genomics . 81 . 5 . 468–80 . 2003 . 12706105 . 10.1016/S0888-7543(03)00004-1 .
• Gerhard DS, Wagner L, Feingold EA, etal . The status, quality, and expansion of the NIH full-length cDNA project: the Mammalian Gene Collection (MGC). . Genome Res. . 14 . 10B . 2121–7 . 2004 . 15489334 . 10.1101/gr.2596504 . 528928 .
• Wiemann S, Arlt D, Huber W, etal . From ORFeome to biology: a functional genomics pipeline. . Genome Res. . 14 . 10B . 2136–44 . 2004 . 15489336 . 10.1101/gr.2576704 . 528930 .
• Mehrle A, Rosenfelder H, Schupp I, etal . The LIFEdb database in 2006. . Nucleic Acids Res. . 34 . Database issue . D415–8 . 2006 . 16381901 . 10.1093/nar/gkj139 . 1347501 .

Notes and References

1. Zhang QH, Ye M, Wu XY, Ren SX, Zhao M, Zhao CJ, Fu G, Shen Y, Fan HY, Lu G, Zhong M, Xu XR, Han ZG, Zhang JW, Tao J, Huang QH, Zhou J, Hu GX, Gu J, Chen SJ, Chen Z . Cloning and functional analysis of cDNAs with open reading frames for 300 previously undefined genes expressed in CD34+ hematopoietic stem/progenitor cells . Genome Res . 10 . 10 . 1546–60 . Nov 2000 . 11042152 . 310934 . 10.1101/gr.140200 .
2. Koc EC, Burkhart W, Blackburn K, Moyer MB, Schlatzer DM, Moseley A, Spremulli LL . The large subunit of the mammalian mitochondrial ribosome. Analysis of the complement of ribosomal proteins present . J Biol Chem . 276 . 47 . 43958–69 . Nov 2001 . 11551941 . 10.1074/jbc.M106510200 . free .
3. Web site: Entrez Gene: MRPL18 mitochondrial ribosomal protein L18.