《生命科学》 2009, 21(6): 771-780

细菌核糖体的结构和功能

刘望夷

(中国科学院上海生命科学研究院生物化学和细胞生物学研究所，上海 200031)

摘　要：摘　要：二十多年来，国际上几家实验室独立地竞争性地应用高分辨率X-射线衍射技术在原子水平上绘制出了细菌完整核糖体及其亚基精细的三维结构图，为其生物功能的研究提供了清晰的结构基础。由于这项伟大的科学成果，美国科学家文卡特拉曼·拉马克里希南(Venkatraman Ramakrishnan)、托马斯肥·施泰茨(Thomas A. Steitz)和以色列女科学家阿达·约纳特(Ada E. Yonath)三人荣获2009年度诺贝尔化学奖。细菌核糖体是细胞中合成蛋白质的一种细胞器，包括大小不同的两个亚基，由3种RNA和50多种不同的蛋白质组成。
关键词：核糖体；诺贝尔化学奖；X射线衍射晶体学

Structure and function of the bacterial ribosome

LIU Wang-yi

(Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology， Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences， Chinese Academy of Sciences， Shanghai 200031，China)

Abstract: Abstract: The Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2009 is awarded to two American scientists Venkatraman Ramakrishnan， Thomas A. Steitz and an Israel female scientist Ada E. Yonath for their excellent study of the structure and function of the bacterial ribosome. During the past two decades more， they concentrated on the X-ray crystallographical analysis of the crystals of bacterial ribosome and its subunits， and finally reached the high resolution(2.4-3.0 ? that allowed the construction of a detailed atomic model of ribosome. The bacterial ribosome (70S) consists of a small (30S) and a large (50S) subunit. The 30S subunit is composed of about 20 distinct proteins and a molecule of 16S rRNA. The 50S subunit is composed of about 34 different proteins， a molecule of 23S rRNA and a molecule of 5S rRNA.
Key words: ribosome; the Nobel Prize in Chemistry; X-ray crystallography