N-formylmethionyl-sRNA as the initiator of protein synthesis.

A bizarre fast about Nterminal groups of bacterial proteins. Instead of a random mixture, that the great majority of N-terminal groups were either methionine or alanine. This finding suggested that methionine and alanine constituted start signals for the initiation of polypeptide chains. Alternatively, the remaining amino acids were not detected because of acylation of their amino roups. The discovery of Nformylmethionyl-sRNA provided a means for furtherstudy of the problem.