Prokaryotes and eukaryotes have different cell structures and ways of making cells work. Prokaryotic ribosomes are composed of 50S and 30S subunits, containing RNA and protein molecules. Ribosomes attach to mRNA and transfer RNAs to form proteins. Prokaryotic ribosomes are fast and can string together up to 20 amino acids per second.
Scientists divide cellular life into two main groups, prokaryotes and eukaryotes. Eukaryotes tend to be more complex organisms than prokaryotes, which are bacteria and a similar group called archaea. Ribosomes are present in all cells and are part of the machinery that assembles proteins inside the cell from the genetic blueprint of the cell. A prokaryotic ribosome is a ribosome that functions inside a bacterial or archaeal cell.
Prokaryotes and eukaryotes have different structures to their cells and have different ways of making the cell work. Although all cell types contain genetic material within them, which tells the cell how to make proteins, and ribosomes, which make the proteins, how the cell does this depends on whether the cell is prokaryotic or eukaryotic. The prokaryotic ribosome consists of two subunits, called 50S and 30S.
The numbers associated with the subunits depend on how quickly they sink to the bottom of a centrifuge tube. “S” stands for Svedberg units, which is the method of measuring this sedimentation rate. Each subunit contains both ribonucleic acid (RNA) molecules and protein molecules. The 30S subunit contains a 16S ribonucleic acid and 21 different proteins. The 50S subunit contains one 5S RNA, one 23S RNA, and more than 30 proteins.
All of these molecules come together to form a single prokaryotic ribosome. A bacterial cell, for example, contains thousands of ribosomes, some of which are loose in the cell and some of which are attached to a cellular structure called the endoplasmic reticulum. It is not just the components of a prokaryotic ribosome that are required for its function, but the shape of the ribosome. It has grooves and gaps that allow it to fit the building blocks of proteins and the genetic material which is the teaching strand for the protein.
A cell’s genome contains the instructions for all the proteins the cell needs to function properly. However, the cell only makes proteins when copies of the gene for that protein are made, by the instructions of the master copy. These copies are messenger ribonucleic acids (mRNAs) and the ribosomes recognize them, rather than the master copy.
Ribosomes attach to mRNA and other forms of RNA, called transfer RNAs, pick up the necessary building blocks from the cell to form the required protein and carry them to the ribosomes. These building blocks are amino acids, and once the ribosomes string the amino acids together into one long string according to the instructions of the mRNA, they let the protein enter the cell. Prokaryotic ribosomes are very fast at their job and can stick together at up to 20 amino acids per second.
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