Elongation Cycle Essay

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1.3. Elongation cycle
The elongation cycle is highly conserved across all kingdoms of life. Each cycle of elongation adds one amino acid to the C-terminus of the newly synthesized peptide (Yu et al., 2014). Figure 9 describes the steps involved in the elongation cycle. Figure 9. Bacterial elongation cycle. Elongation cycle involves sequential addition of amino acid to the growing peptide chain. Aminoacylated tRNA in complex with EF-Tu and GTP interacts with the A-site in the decoding center where the correctness of the codon-anticodon is determined. On accommodation aa-tRNA moves into the PTC after which the ribosome forms the hybrid A/P and P/E state in preparation of translocation. After GTP hydrolysis, dissociation of E-F-Tu-GDP and translocation, new aa-tRNA ternary complex reads the codon on the mRNA and continues this cycle(Voorhees e Ramakrishnan, 2013)

Aminoacylation and Delivery of aa-tRNA to the A-site:
E.coli has 20 amino acids, 20 aminoacyl
In this step, large ribosomal subunit protein L7/L12 stalk (L7 differs from L12 by an acetylated N terminus) interacts with helix D of EF-Tu, using its flexible C-terminal domain and delivers the ternary complex to the A-site of the ribosome, shown in figure 11. The stalk is made of two L7/L12 dimers. The N-terminal domain aids in formation of the dimer and anchoring the protein to the ribosomes whereas the C-terminal domain binds to EF-Tu in the ternary complex (Savelsbergh et al., 2000). Figure 11. L7/L12 stalk. The 50S subunit rRNA is depicted in gray and the 50S r-proteins are shown in cyan. The L12 dimers are shown in red with its CTD, NTD and the hinge region. The L10 that provides flexibility is shown in blue while the L11 acting as a anchor is shown in yellow. The L7/L12 dimer stalk aids in delivery of the aa-tRNA ternary complex to the A-site of the ribosome (Diaconu et al.,

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