Correlation between three-dimensional structure and chemical reactivity of transfer RNA

The bases of yeast tRNA(Phe) which react with carbodiimide and methoxyamine have been determined and this information has been combined with chemical modification studies of other workers to produce a composite picture of base accessibility in this tRNA. The results are compared with the three-dimensional structure which we have recently determined. The bases which react chemically lie in exposed positions in the three-dimensional model and those which do not are either in the double helical stem regions or else are involved in maintaining the tertiary structure through pairing or stacking interactions.