Biochemistry 2280A Chapter Notes -Peptide, Methionine, Antibiotics

• School: Western University
• Department: Biochemistry
• Course: Biochemistry 2280A
• Professor: Christopher Brandl

Document Summary

The decoding of the mrna to produce a protein occurs on the ribosome. Mrna spells out the amino acid code in 3 letter words" called codons; each protein has a specific reading frame that is determined by where the decoding process begins. Also, the more common amino acids (found more often in proteins) have more codons, and related amino acids have similar codons. This is likely to reduce the possibility of major error in the final function of the protein; more codons for common amino acids means smaller chance of screwing up getting the wrong amino acid for a certain codon. Trna molecules act as the vehicle that bring amino acids to the growing peptide chain; they function in a codon specific fashion relying on base pairing rules. Trnas tend to have a cloverleaf secondary structure and the anticodon of the trna hybridizes with the codon; the correct amino acid covalently links to 3" end of trna.