What is known about ribosome structure today?
Since 2000, many ribosome crystal structures have been deposited in the Protein Data Bank (PDB). I think of seven of them as founder structures: that is, the first atomic resolution structure obtained from a particular ribosome crystal by a particular laboratory. The three structures that appeared in 2000 are founder structures as are, first, a structure of the large ribosomal subunit from Deinococcus radiodurans [17], second, two independently determined structures for the 70S ribosome from T. thermophilus [18-20], and third, a structure of the 70S ribosome from Escherichia coli [21]. The rest of the ribosome structures in the PDB are those of founder particles with substrates, substrate analogs, protein factors and inhibitors bound, and all of them were generated using effectively the same crystals that produced the corresponding founder structures. (Once the structure of some crystal has been solved, experimental phase determination is not required to solve the structures of derivat
