Molecular structure of the transfer RNA (tRNA)

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Transfer RNAs delivers amino acids to the ribosome allowing the peptide chain to grow during protein synthesis. The tRNA has a distinct L-shape. The top of the L has an acceptor arm which binds specific amino acids. This tRNA carries phenylalanine amino acids. The end of the ‘L-shaped’ leg has an anticodon loop, this contains the 3 nucleotides (in this case AAG) that form an anticodon/codon match with mRNA.

The tRNA 4TNA features in the PDB’s molecule of the month section (https://pdb101.rcsb.org/motm/015), plus there are instruction to build a paper model of this tRNA (https://pdb101.rcsb.org/learn/paper-models/trna).

The model was built using ChimeraX from data in the Protein Data Bank (PDB ID 4TNA) https://www.rcsb.org/structure/4tna & https://www.cgl.ucsf.edu/chimerax/. Structure was published in ‘Further refinement of the structure of yeast tRNAPhe’ by Hingerty, B., Brown, R.S., Jack, A. (1978) J Mol Biol 124: 523-534.