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Drugs and biosynthesis of proteins

The two main steps of the biosynthesis of proteins are transcription and translation.

Transcription is the transfer of genetic information from deoxyribonucleic acid, DNA, to the messenger ribonucleic acid, mRNA, DNA being the template for RNA, through RNA-polymerase-DNA-dependent.

Translation is the biosynthesis of proteins from amino acids carried out in ribosomes with intervention of three types of RNA:

• messenger RNA, mRNA, which conveys the information from DNA to ribosomes. It is synthesized through RNA polymerase II.
• transfer RNA, tRNA, which binds to and transports the intracytoplasmic amino-acids to ribosomes. It is synthesized through RNA polymerase III.
• ribosomal RNA, or rRNA, which assembles amino-acids into polypeptides. It is synthesized through RNA polymerase I.

Drugs which inhibit protein synthesis are primarily antibiotics which, under the conditions of use in medicine, have a sufficient specificity of action against microorganisms for, usually, not deteriorate protein synthesis of the patient himself.

The synthesized proteins are not necessarily functional. They can need post-translational biotransformations which can also be drug targets.

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