Mammalian mitochondrial translation infidelity leads to oxidative stress-induced cell cycle arrest and cardiomyopathy

Editing of mischarged tRNAs by cytoplasmic aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases (aaRSs) is of high significance for protein homeostasis, whose impairment causes neurodegeneration. However, whether mitochondrial translation needs fidelity and the significance of proofreading (editing) by mitochondrial aaRSs are long-term mysteries. Here, we showed that NIH-3T3 cell line critically depend on the editing of mitochondrial threonyl-tRNA synthetase (Tars2) editing, the disruption of which accumulated Ser-tRNAThr and generated a large abundance of Thr-to-Ser misincorporated peptides. Such infidelity impaired mitochondrial translation and oxidative phosphorylation, causing oxidative stress and cell cycle arrest at G0/G1 phase. ROS removal by N-acetylcysteine relieved abnormal cell proliferation. Comparative gene expression profiling analysis of RNA-seq data for NIH-3T3 cells and its mutate derivative (NIH-3T3-MU).