What: "The purpose of a ribosome is to spit out protein molecules. The purpose of a machine gun is to spit out bullets. The machine gun takes in a belt of ammunition one cartridge at a time. It spits out the bullet, discards the cartridge casing and belt link, and then advances to the next cartridge to do it all over again.""The ribosome takes in a belt of RNA (this is not the tRNA we have been talking about) which specifies which tRNA to grab from the soup. The tRNA is like the cartridge and belt link but they are not linked together to start with. When the ribosome grabs the right tRNA, the left hand catcher's mitt grabs the right hand catcher's mitt of the previous tRNA and forms a link on a chain. This chain is similar to the ammunition chain of the machine gun. It travels a short way down the ribosome until the amino acid group gets hooked up with the previous amino acid group, and then the tRNA is broken loose and ejected sort of like the cartridge casing and the belt link."

Writer: Paul R. Martin

LCC:

Where:

Date: Dec 31 2013 12:55 PM