- First the Amino Acid must be activated. This involves the addition of ATP (adenosine triphosphate), forming Aminoacyl Adenylate.
- Once the amino acid has been activated it can be attached to the tRNA. This follows the following scheme:
Aminoacyl Adenylate + tRNA –> Aminoacyl-tRNA + AMP.
See the following image from wiley.com, showing the structure of a tRNA molecule with amino acid attached. Note at the bottom is the mRNA strand.
- tRNA
As we know, tRNA is an adapter molecule that carries amino acids in an activated form to ribosomes for protein synthesis.
There is at least 1 tRNA molecule for each of the 20 amino acids.
It adopts a folding structure with internal base pairing and is about 75 nucleotides long.
Great. It is tidy and clean just like how messy chemical reactions should be like in fantasy!
Thanks. It was very helpful.
nice but some explanation needed.
Thanks for the feedback, what extra info would you like?
Why is there a “T” base showing in the tRNA. Shouldn’t it be a “U” base?
You would normally see Uracil instead of Thymine on RNA but tRNA has many modifications, one of which can result in Thymines being present on tRNA (as well as Uracils).
Thanks Dave~