translation

amino acid structures

the third nucleotide in a codon is where most of the redundancy is. The reason is because of wobble in tRNA that allows them to bind to DNA in a flexible way.

Aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases determine the specificty between amino acid and its tRNA. There are exactly 20 different aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases in a cell.

amino acid binds to 3’ end of tRNA

This process is called tRNA charging.

translation initiation

The initiation codon is AUG in eukaryotic and prokaryotic cells. The shine-dalgarno consensus sequence is recognized by the small unit of the ribosome in bacteria.

The Kozak sequence in eukaryotic cells facilitates identification of the start codon.

Ribosome binding sites

  • A-site (aminoacyl tRNA site)
  • P-site (peptidyl tRNA site): holds tRNA attached to
  • E-site (exit site): tRNA leaves the ribsome