What is the role of EF-Tu? The Role of EF-Tu in Protein Synthesis

The Role of EF-Tu in Protein Synthesis

EF-Tu, otherwise known as elongation factor-Tu, is an essential bacterial protein that plays an integral role in the process of protein synthesis. EF-Tu is responsible for selecting the correct amino acid and positioning it at the appropriate location on a growing peptide chain during translation. EF-Tu is also a GTPase that functions as a charged carrier of aminoacyl-tRNA complexes to the ribosome during translation initiation. As such, EF-Tu is involved in the selection and binding of aminoacyl-tRNA to the ribosome, as well as the release of deacylated tRNA and hydrolysis of GTP to GDP (Usharani et al., 2020). Apart from its role in translation, EF-Tu also has a role in regulating the expression of specific genes. EF-Tu has been found to directly interact with transcription factors, such as the heat shock transcription factor (HSF1), to regulate their activity and, in turn, the expression of specific genes (Moriyama et al., 2016). Furthermore, EF-Tu is involved in the regulation of gene expression at the post-transcriptional level by mediating the formation of mRNA secondary structures, as well as regulating the stability of mRNA transcripts (Kumar et al., 2021). Cont…