Final Report Summary - EUKARYOTIC RIBOSOME (Structural studies of the eukaryotic ribosome by X-ray crystallography)
The ribosome is a large cellular assembly that plays a central role in the process of protein synthesis, the last stage of expression of genetic information, in all organisms. At the beginning of this project detailed structural information was only available for prokaryotic ribosomes. Although basic aspects of protein synthesis are preserved in all kingdoms of life, eukaryotic ribosomes are much more complex than their bacterial counterparts, require a large number of assembly and maturation factors during their biogenesis, use numerous initiation factors, and are subjected to extensive regulation. Supported by the ERC grant my group has been working on eukaryotic cytoplasmic and mitochondrial ribosomes and their functional complexes. We obtained structural information on eukaryotic ribosomes by determining complete structures of both eukaryotic ribosomal subunits and their complexes with initiation factors and viral mRNAs. Furthermore, we obtained important structural and functional insights into mitochondrial translational machinery by determining the high resolution structure of the mammalian mitochondrial ribosome. These results are of fundamental importance for understanding protein synthesis in eukaryotes and are the prerequisite for understanding the structural basis of the regulation of protein synthesis in normal cells and how it is perturbed in various diseases.