The structure and function of the ribosome. Nobel Prize in chemistry 2009

Abstract

The Nobel prize in chemistry was awarded to Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, Thomas A. Steitz and Ada E. Yonath for their studies on the structure and function of the ribosome. These scientists used X-ray crystallography to determine the three dimensional structure of the bacterial ribosome at atomic resolution. The knowledge of the positions of atoms in such a large macromolecular complex helped to resolve its mechanism of action. Their studies confirmed that the ribosome is a ribozyme and exerts its catalytic power from the RNA and not proteins. This paves way to design novel antibiotics targeting the bacterial ribosome. Next step would be to determine a high resolution structure of the eukaryotic ribosome which is larger and more complicated than the prokaryotic one.