In a first for cell biology, scientists observe ribosome assembly in real time

A team of scientists from Scripps Research and Stanford University has recorded in real time a key step in the assembly of ribosomes – the complex and evolutionarily ancient "molecular machines" that make proteins in cells and are essential for all life forms.

The achievement, reported in Cell, reveals in unprecedented detail how strands of ribonucleic acid (RNA), cellular molecules that are inherently sticky and prone to misfold, are "chaperoned" by ribosomal proteins into folding properly and forming one of the main components of ribosomes.

The findings overturn the longstanding belief that ribosomes are assembled in a tightly controlled, step-wise process.

"In contrast to what had been the dominant theory in the field, we revealed a far more chaotic process," says James R. Williamson, Ph.D., a professor in the Department of Integrative Structural & Computational Biology at Scripps Research. "It's not a sleek Detroit assembly line – it's more like a trading pit on Wall Street."

Although the work is a significant feat of basic cell biology, it should enable important advances in medicine. For example, some current antibiotics work by inhibiting bacterial ribosomes; the new research opens up the possibility of designing future antibiotics that target bacterial ribosomes with greater specificity – and thus, fewer side effects.