Question

The site of translation is
a. The endoplasmic reticulum
b. The nucleus
c. The cytosol
d. The golgi complex
e. The cell membrane

Answer 1

Translation involves the synthesis of polypeptide chains from messenger RNA (mRNA). The polypeptide chain further folds to form protein which is essential for the cell functioning.

Complete answer:
Once the DNA is transcribed into mRNA in the nucleus, it is moved into cytosol to get translated into a polypeptide chain with the help of ribosomes.

Hence, the correct answer is option (c).

Additional information:
To have a better understanding of the whole process of translation, let us look into the steps involved. Translation has three steps:
• Initiation: The ribosomes in the cytosol helps in decoding the target mRNA with the help of tRNA. These tRNA have complementary codons with respect to the start codon of the mRNA, thus initiating translation.
• Elongation: The tRNA starts assembling the amino acids by reading each codon while the ribosome translocates one codon after another.
• Termination: This is the final step in which the polypeptide chain synthesized gets released from the ribosome as it has reached the stop codon.

Note: Translation is a vital process necessary for both prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells. In prokaryotes, translation occurs in cytoplasm while in eukaryotes in cytosol. In eukaryotic cells, the rough endoplasmic reticulum’s (ER) membrane has ribosomes attached to it. The protein synthesis by these ribosomes are termed as co-translation translocation. The synthesized protein is released into the ER which is stored or released based on the cell’s need. The understanding of translation in prokaryotes has enabled the discovery of many antibiotics such as tetracycline, streptomycin, anisomycin and puromycin. These antibiotics work by inhibiting translation in the bacterial cell.