Page 218 - The Miracle of Protein

216 THE MIRACLE OF PROTEIN

a chain and then fold them in the required way to produce pro-
teins. In other words, without the presence and help of other
proteins, functional proteins cannot emerge and therefore, life
cannot emerge gradually by itself. Let’s briefly go over the facts:

WHY PROTEINS CANNOT FORM WITHOUT
THE HELP OF OTHER PROTEINS

Based on what we have seen so far, let’s remember why, in
order for a single protein to emerge, other proteins must be pre-
sent and what qualities the amino acid chains making up the
protein, must possess:

1. Only 20 out of close to 200 natural or synthetic amino
acids on Earth can be used for protein production. Therefore,
the ones necessary among these more than 200 amino acids
should be selected and set aside.
2. The selected amino acids must be always left handed,
because only left-handed ones can be used for the synthesis of

amino acids in living structures.
3. An enzyme system responsible for the production of
amino acids in the cell must also be present. For example, in
bacteria that can produce the 20 amino acids, this enzyme sys-

tem consists of 35 enzymes.
4. Amino acid production must be accompanied by a con-
trol system.
5. Amino acids must be lined up according to a certain se-
quence.
6. Various proteins need to be present for copying the

protein data in the DNA and for the subsequent processes.
7. Cell organelles called ribosomes are required to synthe-
size the copied data. Ribosome contains ribosomal proteins and