translation

• During translation amino acids join together to form a polypeptide chain
• mRNA attaches to a ribosome and transfer RNA collects amino acids from the

  cytoplasm and carries them to the ribosome. tRNA is a single stranded molecule with a binding site at one end thus it can only carry one type of amino acid, and a triplet of bases at the other.
• tRNA attaches itself to mRNA by complementary base pairing – two molecules

  attach to mRNA at a time
• The amino acids attached to two tRNA molecules join by a peptide bond and then

  tRNA molecules detach themselves from the amino acids, leaving them behind.
• This process is repeated thus leading to the formation of a polypeptide chain until a

  stop codon is reached on mRNA and ends the process of protein synthesis.