核糖体的研究历程——2009年诺贝尔化学奖简介

The Great Journey of the Ribosome Research:2009's Nobel Prize in Chemistry

2009年10月7日,美国科学家V.拉马克里希南、T.施泰茨以及以色列女科学家A.尤纳特因为对核糖体结构和功能的研究共同获得诺贝尔化学奖。这三位科学家分别应用X射线衍射技术以高分辨率解析了核糖体的原子结构并且研究了核糖体功能。

The 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to two American scientists Venkatraman Ramakrishnan,Thomas A.Steitz and the Israel female scientist Ada E.Yonath for their X-ray diffraction analysis of the structure and function of ribosome.Their work showed the ribosome at atomic resolution and allowed the construction of a detailed three-dimensional model of ribosome.The bacterial ribosome（70S） consists of a small（30S） and a large（50S） subunit.The 30S subunit is composed of 21 distinct proteins and a molecule of 16S rRNA.The 50S subunit is composed of 34 different proteins,a molecule of 23S rRNA and a molecule of 5S rRNA.The eukaryotic ribosomes are larger and more complex than those from prokaryotes.Various proteins synthesized in ribosomes in turn control the chemistry in all living organisms.As ribosomes are crucial to life,they are also a major target for antibiotics and RIP.