Life · life
Ribosome
Copier · Mg, P
- Numbers
- About 20 amino acids a second in a bacterium, nearer 2 to 5 in a human cell. An error roughly every 10,000 residues.
- Kind
- Copier
Function
Reads messenger RNA three bases at a time and builds the protein it specifies, catching each amino acid on a transfer RNA that pairs with the codon. The catalytic site is RNA, not protein, which is the strongest evidence that RNA came first.
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