The cloverleaf model of tRNA is a model that depicts the molecular structure of

tRNA Transfer RNA (abbreviated tRNA and formerly referred to as sRNA, for soluble RNA) is an adaptor molecule composed of RNA, typically 76 to 90 nucleotides in length (in eukaryotes), that serves as the physical link between the mRNA and the amino ...

. The model revealed that the chain of tRNA consists of two ends—sometimes called "business ends"—and three arms. Two of the arms have a loop, D-loop (dihydro U loop) and Tψc-loop with a ribosome recognition site. The third arm known as "variable arm" has a stem with optional loop. One end of the chains (with a double stranded structure in which the 5' and 3' ends are adjacent to each other), the amino acids acceptor stem, usually attaches to amino acids and such reactions are often catalyzed by a specific enzymes,

aminoacyl tRNA synthetase An aminoacyl-tRNA synthetase (aaRS or ARS), also called tRNA-ligase, is an enzyme that attaches the appropriate amino acid onto its corresponding tRNA. It does so by catalyzing the transesterification of a specific cognate amino acid or its pre ...

. For example, if the amino acid that attach to the end is

alanine Alanine (symbol Ala or A), or α-alanine, is an α-amino acid that is used in the biosynthesis of proteins. It contains an amine group and a carboxylic acid group, both attached to the central carbon atom which also carries a methyl group side ...

, the reaction will be catalyzed by '' alanine-tRNA synthase'' to produce tRNA^phe. The other end—the bottom often called the "DNA arm"—consists of a three base sequence that pairs with a complementary base sequence in a

mRNA In molecular biology, messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) is a single-stranded molecule of RNA that corresponds to the genetic sequence of a gene, and is read by a ribosome in the process of Protein biosynthesis, synthesizing a protein. mRNA is ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Transfer Rna RNA Protein biosynthesis Non-coding RNA Articles containing video clips

See also

References