ISSN 2756-3626
Global Journal of Plant and Soil Sciences Vol. 4 (3), pp. 001-003, March, 2020. © International Scholars Journals
Review
Understanding of protein synthesis in a living cell
Y. Mustapha1 and S. Muhammad2
1Department of Biological Sciences, Bayero University, Kano, Nigeria.
2Department of Biological Sciences, Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto, Nigeria.
Accepted 20 October, 2019
Abstract
The assembly of proteins takes place in the cytoplasm of a cell. There are three main steps. In initiation, far left, all the necessary parts of the process are brought together by a small molecule called a ribosome. During elongation, amino acids, the building blocks of proteins, are joined to one another in a long chain. The sequence in which the amino acids are added is determined by messenger, messenger ribonucleic acid RNA (mRNA), a transcribed copy of the cell’s deoxyribonucleic acid DNA. Termination, far right, takes place when the mRNA sequence contains one of several “stop” codons. At these, the ribosome-mRNA complex binds a release factor that causes release of the completed (protein) chain of amino acids. The released chain is called the primary structure of a protein. This paper outlines simple methods for students and teachers alike to help in understand the mechanism of protein synthesis in a living cell.
Keywords: deoxyribonucleic acid DNA, messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA), amino acids codons.