Transfer RNAs: electrostatic patterns and an early stage of recognition by synthetases and elongation factor EF-Tu.

Distributions of phosphate backbone-produced electrostatic potentials around several tRNAs were calculated by solving the nonlinear Poisson-Boltzmann equation. The tRNAs were either free or bound to the proteins involved in translation: aminoacyl-tRNA and elongation factor EF-Tu. We identified several regions of strong negative potential related to typical structural patterns of tRNA and invariant throughout the tRNAs.