自从首个遗传密码子被破译以来, 密码子与所表达的氨基酸之间的关系一直吸引了许多关注. 本研究从氨基酸、核苷和三偏磷酸钠的反应体系出发, 用电子舌检测反应前后体系变化, 考察核苷对氨基酸成肽反应的影响, 试图找到氨基酸与密码子的联系. 结果表明, 大部分氨基酸的密码子或反密码子中间位核苷对反应的促进作用最大, 这种结果可能是因为核苷的碱基与氨基酸的侧链基团之间的某种弱相互作用导致的. 相应地, 亮氨酸和异亮氨酸之间的结果差异更加佐证了上述假设. 这种弱相互作用有望成为研究密码子识别氨基酸的关键突破, 为生命起源的研究提供新方法.

The relationship between genetic codons and amino acids has attracted much attentions since the discovery of first genetic codon. Although we have known that relationship of codons and amino acids clearly, even some rare amino acids also have their codons in certain creatures, we do not know the real principle that how a codon detertmine an amino acid. In fact, the codon is a little far from amino acid in a tRNA. With many efforts, we have not detect the secret of codon. Before we used nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and high resolution mass spectrum (HRMS) to detect the product of reaction of amino acids, nucleosides and sodium trimetaphosphate to find out the relationship between amino acid and nucleoside. But the productivity was too low to determine. Electronic tongue is a machine used to determine the whole variant of a solution, especially in food industry, it could determine very subtle variant. So we use it to determine the whole variant of our system. In this work, we reported the reactions between amino acids, nucleosides and sodium trimetaphosphate. Each ingredient was 0.0008 mol/L and pH was adjusted to 11 by NaOH, then reacted at 50 ℃for 48 h. The reacted mixture was cooled down to room temperature and detected by electronic tongue. Also, the samples that were freshly prepared were detected by electronic tongue to be original data. The overall changes of the reaction mixtures were characterized by the average of Euclidean Distance. The results show that the nucleosides in middle of codon or anticodon displayed the greatest effect on the reactions. The results also indicate that there are significant interrelations between amino acids and nucleosides, which was also proved by the difference between the results of leucine and isoleucine. In summary, the results may open a new avenue to the study of the relationship between genetic codens and amino acids and origin of life.