Question: what is a ribosome?

Ailsa Powell answered on 18 Jun 2011:

Hi there,
So what is a ribosome. In the cells of all living things there is DNA and it is this that contains the details of everything that the living thing needs to survive. But DNA just contains the information, it doesn’t do all the jobs that we need to survive, but proteins do. So how does the information contained in our DNA become the proteins? This process is called gene expression and consists to two steps transcription and translation. Firstly transciption is where the DNA is converted to complementary RNA molecules, THe RNA match the 4 different molecules that are found in DNA but are larger molecules that can bind to other things. THis is where the ribosome comes in, it is in molecule terms a giant of a machine and it binds the RNA moleules that are carrying the information from the DNA, it also binds the different amino acids that make up proteins. It feeds in the RNA molecules (which are in the correct order as transcribed from the DNA) and matches them with the complimentary amino acid – this process is called translation. THe amino acids are then joined up to for the polypeptide chain that is the protein we need. Once the structure of the ribosome was solved a greater understanding of the way the ribosome converts the information from the DNA into protein has been discovered and it really is amazing.

If you want to see what a ribosome looks like follow this link

http://wellcometrust.wordpress.com/2010/02/12/wellcome-image-of-the-month-the-ribosome-at-atomic-resolution/

I hope that answers your question, just post a comment if you need more info 🙂