Good Protein Synthesis

(To the tune of “Good King Wenceslaus”) / Recording by David Simmons

Amino acids cannot join
By themselves together
They require ribosomes
To create the tether

All the protein chains get made
‘Cording to instruction
Carried by m-R-N-A
In peptide bond con-struc-tion

Small subunit starts it all
With initiation
Pairing up two RNAs
At the docking station

Shine Dalgarno’s complement
In the 16 esses
Lines the A-U-G up so
Synthesis commences

Elongation happens in
Ribosomic insides
Where rRNA creates
Bonds for polypeptides

These depart the ribosome
Passing right straight through it
In the tiny channels there
Of the large subunit

Finally when the sequence of
One of the stop codons
Parks itself in the A site
Synthesis can’t go on

P-site RNA lets go
Of what it was holding
So the polypeptide can
Get on with its folding