Ribosomes are like tiny factories inside our cells. They play a really important role in making proteins. You can think of a ribosome as a factory that takes raw materials and turns them into finished products. In this case, the raw materials are amino acids!
How Ribosomes Work:
Messenger RNA (mRNA): It all starts when a part of DNA is copied into mRNA in the cell’s nucleus. This mRNA acts like a set of instructions for building proteins.
Ribosome Assembly: Next, the mRNA leaves the nucleus and goes into the cytoplasm, which is the fluid inside the cell. Ribosomes then attach to this mRNA. You can find ribosomes floating around in the cytoplasm or stuck to a fold of the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), which makes the rough ER.
Translation Process: As the ribosome moves along the mRNA, it reads the sequence of building blocks called nucleotides in groups of three. These groups are called codons, and each codon stands for a specific amino acid. For example, the codon “AUG” tells the ribosome to start with the amino acid methionine.
Stringing Together Amino Acids: Transfer RNA (tRNA) brings the right amino acids to the ribosome. The ribosome links these amino acids together to form a long chain, which will eventually fold into a functional protein.
In short, ribosomes are super important for making proteins that do all sorts of jobs in our cells, from speeding up chemical reactions to providing structure!
Ribosomes are like tiny factories inside our cells. They play a really important role in making proteins. You can think of a ribosome as a factory that takes raw materials and turns them into finished products. In this case, the raw materials are amino acids!
How Ribosomes Work:
Messenger RNA (mRNA): It all starts when a part of DNA is copied into mRNA in the cell’s nucleus. This mRNA acts like a set of instructions for building proteins.
Ribosome Assembly: Next, the mRNA leaves the nucleus and goes into the cytoplasm, which is the fluid inside the cell. Ribosomes then attach to this mRNA. You can find ribosomes floating around in the cytoplasm or stuck to a fold of the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), which makes the rough ER.
Translation Process: As the ribosome moves along the mRNA, it reads the sequence of building blocks called nucleotides in groups of three. These groups are called codons, and each codon stands for a specific amino acid. For example, the codon “AUG” tells the ribosome to start with the amino acid methionine.
Stringing Together Amino Acids: Transfer RNA (tRNA) brings the right amino acids to the ribosome. The ribosome links these amino acids together to form a long chain, which will eventually fold into a functional protein.
In short, ribosomes are super important for making proteins that do all sorts of jobs in our cells, from speeding up chemical reactions to providing structure!