Total synthesis of the structural gene for the precursor of a tyrosine suppressor transfer RNA from Escherichia coli. I. General introduction

With the ultimate objective of the total synthesis of a tRNA gene including its transcriptional signals, an Escherichia coli tyrosine suppressor tRNA gene was chosen. The arguments in favor of this choice are presented. A plan for the total synthesis of the 126 nucleotide long DNA duplex corresponding to a precursor to the above tRNA is formulated. The plan involves: (a) the chemical synthesis of 26 deoxyribooligonucleotide segments, (b) polynucleotide ligase catalyzed joining of several segments at a time to form a total of four DNA duplexes with appropriate complementary single stranded ends, and (c) the joining of the duplexes to form the entire DNA duplex. Ten accompanying papers describe the experimental realization of this objective.