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Updated: Aug 11, 2026

Single Molecule Fluorescence Energy Transfer Study of Ribosome Protein Synthesis
Published on: July 6, 2021
The ribosome-recycling step: consensus or controversy?
Go Hirokawa1, Natalia Demeshkina, Nobuhiro Iwakura
1Department of Microbiology, School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA.
Abstract:
Ribosome recycling, the last step in translation, is now accepted as an essential process for prokaryotes. In 2005, three laboratories showed that ribosome-recycling factor (RRF) and elongation factor G (EF-G) cause dissociation of ribosomes into subunits, solving the long-standing problem of how this essential step of translation occurs. However, there remains ongoing controversy regarding the other actions of RRF and EF-G during ribosome recycling. We propose that the available data are consistent with the notion that RRF and EF-G not only split ribosomes into subunits but also participate directly in the release of deacylated tRNA and mRNA for the next round of translation.
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