the.com/ribosome
the cell's tireless factory, stitching proteins from genetic blueprints at twenty amino acids a second
means A ribosome is the tiny molecular machine inside every cell that reads messenger RNA and assembles amino acids into proteins.
from Coined in the late 1950s from "ribo-" (after ribonucleic acid, the RNA these particles are rich in) plus "-some," from the Greek "soma," meaning "body" — the same "-some" that names other cellular bodies like the chromosome and lysosome. So the word literally reads as "the RNA body," a fittingly plain name for the cell's busiest workshop.
- part rock
- Two-thirds RNA, not protein, despite building proteins
- ancient origin
- Likely predates DNA in life's earliest chemistry
- antibiotic target
- Many drugs work by jamming bacterial ribosomes
- nobel haul
- Its structure won the 2009 Chemistry prize
- sheer numbers
- A single cell can hold millions of them
escherichia coli 70s ribosome — bacterial ribosome structure solved by venkatraman ramakrishnan, 2009 nobel prize
human 80s ribosome — eukaryotic ribosome in mitochondria and cytoplasm, 4 million atoms, cryo-em structures from 2015