The ribosome story: An overview of structural studies of protein synthesis on the ribosome
Protein synthesis has been studied for more than half a century, but the atomic details of this complex system, the ribosome, began to be revealed in 1999 and 2000 through crystallographic structure determinations. As with all biomolecular systems, the advent of atomic structures are milestones in the process of relating function to structure. During these 10 years there has been an avalanche in biochemical investigations related to the crystal structures as well as new structures pinpointing specific functional details. Three of the central workers in the field (Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, Thomas Steitz and Ada Yonath) were awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry 2009. Even though their work has led to significant leaps in understanding, much remains to be clarified. This review will summarize some of the work so far and the understanding achieved.