Protein synthesis is essential for sustaining life, and DNA, mRNA, and tRNA play a critical role in this process. Even small errors in this process can have life-threatening effects.
Proteins are the main building blocks of our bodies. Whether it’s building muscles, hair, skin, or nails, proteins play a prominent role. Proteins don’t just form the structure of the body, they also play a variety of roles that are essential for life, including hormones, enzymes, and antibodies. For example, hormones allow different organs in the body to communicate with each other, enzymes catalyze biochemical reactions, and antibodies protect against foreign pathogens. As you can see, proteins are key to the balance and harmony of the entire body, and their importance cannot be overemphasized.
This begs the question: where and how are they made? To find out, let’s go to the kitchen called the cell.
To make a dish called a protein, you first need a recipe. The recipe for proteins is in the cell’s nucleus, the place where DNA, which stores genetic information, is stored. The DNA is a kind of “blueprint for life” that dictates both what each protein will do and what it will look like. Since proteins are built from this blueprint, DNA’s role in the cell is essential. This blueprint is important in itself, but it’s also very important to protect it from damage.
Skim through the DNA and choose one that you like. Excitedly, you grab it and run straight to the cytoplasm of the galley, but the recipe is too valuable to take home. You have no choice but to follow the rules. I have to take a copy of the recipe with me. This is where mRNA comes in. It transfers the information from DNA to mRNA. This process is very precise, and there is no room for error. If the information from the DNA is not transferred to the mRNA correctly, the protein will not be made properly. After neatly placing our precious DNA in its proper place, we pick up the mRNA and safely exit the cytoplasm.
Now that we have a recipe, let’s get cooking. Drizzle the mRNA onto the ribosome, the floating cooking table in the cytoplasm. Our chefs, the tRNAs, are already waiting around. They are the “messengers” that carry the amino acids that make up proteins, and without them, protein synthesis would be impossible. As soon as the mRNA is unrolled onto the ribosome, the tRNAs quickly begin to decode it. tRNAs are highly trained, skillful, and orderly. They follow the instructions written in the mRNA, picking out the right twenty amino acids from the cooking ingredients, picking them up one by one and placing them on the cooking table. At the same time, the rRNAs, the cooking utensils, do their job at the table. They string the ingredients together to make a series of amino acids, or polypeptides. This process continues nonstop until the mRNA is told to stop.
After the signal is given, the long chain of polypeptides is removed from the table as a beautiful dish. Now, let’s make this dish even more colorful. We use a decorating technique called hydrogen bonding to make these chains into rings. You look at it and realize that something is still missing. Aha, I have an idea. Fold the rings a few more times to resemble a sphere. Finally, you have a beautiful piece of culinary art: your protein. Can’t you just look at it and smile?
It’s important to note that the process of cooking proteins is not one to be messed with. If you mess up at any point, you won’t get the results you want. The original DNA of the recipe must not mutate. The recipe copy mRNA can’t have the wrong information transferred to it. The cook tRNA shouldn’t cause problems while decoding the mRNA. These seemingly small things can have a huge impact on protein synthesis.
For example, imagine you’re trying to cook hemoglobin, the protein that carries oxygen. But things go wrong from the start. The original recipe DNA has mutated and has the wrong information. If you start off on the wrong foot, what’s the result? Failure, of course. The result is sickle cells, which cause anemia in the body. The result is sickle cells, which cause anemia in the body.
The synthesis of proteins is a mysterious and precise process. The process is similar to cooking, and it has to be thorough. Protein is that important, and it”s essential for life to survive. This meticulous process sustains life and allows us to go about our day. This is the essence of protein cooking.
