Formation of Peptide Bonds--I: Peptide Formation from Aminoacyl-S-RNA

Abstract

Considerable progress has been made in the last decade in understanding the process of protein biosynthesis. The major components of the protein synthesizing system have been identified, albeit rather vaguely in the case of several of the components. The amino acids are activated by specific activating enzymes and tagged with nucleotide code units by attachment to amino acid-specific S-RNAs. These aminoacyl-S-RNAs serve as the immediate donors of amino acid for polypeptide synthesis. During the last few years the aim of this laboratory has been to identify more closely the components involved in the synthesis of polypeptides from aminoacyl-S-RNAs (Hülsmann and Lipmann, 1960; Nathans and Lipmann, 1960; Nathans and Lipmann, 1961; Nathans et al., 1962; von Ehrenstein and Lipmann, 1961). As shown in Table 1, in addition to aminoacyl-S-RNA, ribosomes, and messenger RNA (M-RNA), polymerizing enzymes, GTP, a sulfhydryl compound, magnesium, and potassium or ammonium ions are required.