Ribosomes are molecular machines that build proteins. They are located in cells. The average mammalian cell has over 10 million ribosomes. Ribosomes are complex catalytic machines that use the mRNA, that is copied from the genetic information in DNA, to assemble amino acid building blocks into 3 dimensional proteins.
They are composed of a large and a small sub-unit that assemble around the mRNA. The tRNAs transport the amino acids to the ribosome and link to the mRNA when there is a codon/anti-codon match. The larger sub-unit of the ribosome removes the amino acid from the tRNA adding it the growing protein chain.
The model was built using ChimeraX from data in the Protein Data Bank (PDB ID 6OLE) https://www.rcsb.org/structure/6OLE & https://www.cgl.ucsf.edu/chimerax/. Structure was published in ‘Structural basis for selective stalling of human ribosome nascent chain complexes by a drug-like molecule.’ by Ward et al. (2019) Nat Struct Mol Biol 26: 501-509
Comments