[mango10]

my bf and i were having a debate on this question: one of the neccessary species for protein synthesis that will be deactivated at high temperature has to be protein am i right?

does anyone know? thank you

[Yggdrasil]

In vivo protein synthesis is carried out by the ribosome which is a complex of proteins and RNA.  The ribosomal proteins, although essential for the correct function of the ribosome, provide only structural support to hold the rRNA in the correct conformation; the RNA acts as the catalyst for protein synthesis in the ribosome.

However, the ribosome can be denatured at high temperatures, since RNA secondary structure is succeptible to thermal denaturation.  In addition, heat will denature proteins upstream of translation such as RNA polymerase II, and the proteins involved in capping and polyadenylation (which are essential for producing the mRNA template for protein synthesis).

[Donaldson Tan]

RNA is definitely not a protein, but it shares some structural similarity that allows it to be denatured at high temperature, just like proteins.