Elongator complex in Drosophila melanogaster

Elongator is a conserved six-subunit complex that modifies uridines at the wobble position (U34) of tRNAs by adding a carboxymethyl group, the first step towards mcm5U and mcm5s2U, which are needed for efficient and accurate decoding. It is formed by two subcomplexes. Elp1, Elp2 and Elp3 form the core subcomplex; Elp3 is the catalytic subunit, a radical SAM enzyme with an acetyltransferase domain, and Elp1 is the scaffold. Elp4, Elp5 and Elp6 form a hetero-hexameric RecA-like ring (two copies of each) that binds tRNA and ATP. In Drosophila, Elp3 is required for larval development and neuronal function.

The split into Elp1-3 and Elp4-6 subcomplexes follows the conserved architecture defined in yeast and human; FlyBase groups all six subunits in ELP. Elongator was first described as an RNA polymerase II elongation factor, but its established direct activity is tRNA modification, so transcription elongation is not a process here. FlyBase groups realized by this module: ELP (FBgg0001820). Participants were generated from the FlyBase gene-group membership and mapped to UniProtKB by projects/FLYBASE_GENE_GROUPS/generate_modules.py from module_specs/dmel_elongator_complex.yaml. None of the member genes has a gene review in this repository yet.