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Translocation at work

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Translocation is an essential step of protein synthesis in which the large tRNA2–mRNA complex inside the ribosome moves from the A and P sites to the P and E sites, respectively, bringing a new mRNA codon into the decoding center. This process is catalyzed by the elongation factor EF-G–GTP (eEF2 in eukaryotes) and is the least understood stage of peptide elongation. Four new reports describe the crystal structures of translocation intermediates, illustrating important details of the translocation reaction.

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Figure 1: Elongation cycle.
Figure 2: Overview of what was previously known about the translocation step.
Figure 3: Overview of new insights into the translocation step.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. John Achenbach is at NOXXON Pharma AG, Berlin, Germany.,

    John Achenbach

  2. Knud H. Nierhaus is at the Institute for Medical Physics and Biophysics, Charité, Berlin, Germany.,

    Knud H Nierhaus

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  1. John Achenbach
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  2. Knud H Nierhaus
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Correspondence to Knud H Nierhaus.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Achenbach, J., Nierhaus, K. Translocation at work. Nat Struct Mol Biol 20, 1019–1022 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nsmb.2661

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