In: Biology
How does a protein get accepted into its targeted cell? Does it have a special code or does it just know where to go?
For a protein to be targeted, it should have a special code. A protein is produced by a pocess called translation in cytosol and it is transported to specific parts of the cells like nucleus, mitochondria, peroxisomes or chloroplast. As mentioned above, each protein has a special code consisting of certain set of amino acids which act as an address label to the protein. Each protein has specific targeting signal that are destined to specific cells organelles. For example, peroxisome targeting singal usually has three set of amino acids( serine, lysine, leucin). This set of amino acids is recognised by a helper protein in the cytosol and it transport the specific proteins to the peroxisome.