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Protein Synthesis Essay

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Protein Synthesis

Protein Synthesis is the process whereby DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) codes for the production of essential proteins, such as enzymes and hormones. Proteins are long chains of molecules called amino acids. Different proteins are made by using different sequences and varying numbers of amino acids. The smallest protein consists of fifty amino acids and the largest is about three thousand amino acids long. Protein synthesis occurs on ribosomes in the cytoplasm of a cell but is controlled by DNA located in the nucleus.

Protein synthesis is a two-part process that involves a second type of nucleic acid along with DNA. This second type of nucleic acid is RNA, ribonucleic acid. …show more content…

It provides a base triplet, a sequence of three bases on one of the strands of DNA, that code for one amino acid. The sequence of base triplets on DNA molecules determines the order of the amino acids on the protein chain.

In the first phase of transcription, the first process of protein synthesis that occurs in the nucleolus, a portion of a DNA molecule unwinds and serves as a template. Free nucleotides floating in the nucleoplasm pair up with their complimentary bases on the DNA strand. (Except that uracil replaces thymine). The nucleotides form sugar-phosphate bonds with each other and become an mRNA strand but they do not form bonds with the DNA strand. The sequence of three exposed bases on mRNA, that are complimentary to the base triplet on the DNA, are known as codons. Once the mRNA strand is complete it moves from the DNA in the nucleus, through the nuclearpore into the cytoplasm where it drapes itself over the ribosomes with their codons exposed.

Floating in the cytoplasm are tRNA molecules which job is to pick up specific amino acids and transport them to where the mRNA is draped. This is done by means of the aminoacyl attachment site (the site at which the amino acid is attached to the tRNA molecule). Each tRNA molecule, by means of their anticodons (a sequence of three exposed free bases complimentary to that of the codons on

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