How do cells convert the instructions of messenger RNA into proteins? What are the famous "gene machines" actually made of? And what happened when a World War II soldier suddenly ended up with a disease no one could cure?

In today's episode, we'll answer all these questions⎯and so many more⎯as we explore the last stage of the Central Dogma: translation.

Part 1: tRNA Structure

• The RNA Tie Club
• The Adaptor Hypothesis and Transfer RNA (tRNA)
• The Five Components of tRNA
• The 2D and 3D Structures of tRNA

Part 2: The Wobble Hypothesis

• Protein-Coding (Sense) vs. Non-Protein-Coding (Nonsense) Codons
• The Start Codon
• The Stop Codons
• Traditional Codon-Anticodon Pairing
• Wobble Pairing

Part 3: Amino Acid Activation (tRNA Loading)

• Reaction Coupling
• Formation of Aminoacyl-AMP
• Pyrophosphate Hydrolysis
• Formation of Aminoacyl-tRNA
• Aminoacyl-tRNA Synthetases

Part 4: The Ribosome

• Ribosomal RNA (rRNA)
• Understanding Svedberg Units
• The 70S and 80S Ribosomes
• The Role of the Nucleolus
• RNA Polymerases I, II, and III
• The A, P, and E Sites

Part 5: Prokaryotic Translation

• Polyribosomes
• Polycistronic mRNA
• The Shine-Dalgarno (SD) Sequence
• Initiation: Initiation Factors, Initiator tRNA, Formylmethionine, and the Translation Initiation Complex
• Elongation: Elongation Factors and the 3-Part Cycle
• Termination: Release Factors and Dissociation

Part 6: Eukaryotic Translation

• Monocistronic mRNA
• The 5' Cap Binding Site
• The Kozak Sequence
• Basics of Initiation, Elongation, and Termination
• Cap-Dependent Translation
• Internal Ribosome Entry Sites (IRES) and Cap-Independent Translation
• Post-Translational Modifications

References

• Clark, M. A., Douglas, M., & Choi, J. (2018). Biology 2e. OpenStax.
• Pallin, D. J., & Wright, J. (2022). MCAT: Biology review (3rd ed.). The Princeton Review.
• Urry, L. A., Cain, M. L., Wasserman, S. A., Minorsky, P. V., & Orr, R. B. (2021). Campbell: Biology (12th ed.). Pearson.

Further Reading

• Bilbray, B. P. (2012). Antibiotic treatments over the past century. Congressional Record.
• Crick, F. (1955). On degenerate templates and the adaptor hypothesis: A note for the RNA Tie Club. NIH.
• Crick, F. (1958). On protein synthesis. Wellcome Collection.
• Dole, B. (2005). One soldier's story. HarperCollins Publishers.
• Ramakrishnan, V. (2018). Gene machine: The race to decipher the secrets of the ribosome. Basic Books.