Credit: Janet Iwasa, Ph.D., University of Utah
Caught in the act: Rqc2 protein adds amino acids to a new protein
A new finding goes against dogma, showing for the first time that the building blocks of a protein, called amino acids, can be assembled by another protein, and without genetic instructions. The Rqc2 protein (yellow) binds tRNAs (dark blue, teal) which add amino acids (bright spot in middle) to a partially made protein (green). The complex binds the ribosome (white).