Plant tRNA isopentenyltransferases (tRNA-IPT, EC 2.5.1.8) have two roles, modification of tRNA and contribution to cytokinin synthesis. tRNA-IPT is among the best studied of the tRNA-modifying enzymes, but little biochemical information is available and none for the plant enzymes. Therefore two sets of experiments were conducted. The first one aimed to determine the kinetics and substrate specificity of the tRNA-IPT AtIPT2 from the higher plant Arabidopsis thaliana. The second project aimed to study the role of IPTs from the moss Physcomitrella patens in the production of cytokinin hormones.

The purpose of this thesis is to analyze the variation in the maximal discrimination of the interaction between cognate and a non-cognate codon and anti-codon (also called the d-value). The variation was analyzed with a multiple regression model with the d-value as the dependent variable and with the codon position and the different mRNA and tRNA bases as independent variables. The result of the analysis not only confirmed earlier studies that the maximal accuracy was highest in the second codon position and lowest in the third codon position but we also found significant relationships and interaction effects..