Ribosomes. How do they work?
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Ribosomes are essentially protein factories for your cells. Proteins are made up of building blocks called amino acids. The ribosomes take individual amino acids and link them together in a specific order to create a finished protein. How do the ribosomes know which amino acids and in which order they need to be placed? They use RNA, which is translated from DNA. Your DNA holds the blueprint for all of the proteins in your body. When a cell needs to make a protein, the DNA is translated into RNA which can then leave the nucleus of the cell and tell the ribosome what kind of protein to make.
There are many different types of RNA. mRNA (messenger RNA) is the type of RNA that tells the ribosome what to do. tRNA (transfer RNA) is the type of RNA that retrieves the individual amino acids and brings them to the ribosome in the order that is dictated by the mRNA. The ribosome just links them together.
This is why you hear people talk about the COVID vaccine “altering your body’s DNA.” The mRNA based vaccines carry mRNA of viral particles. The ribosomes then take the mRNA (they don’t care if your body made it or not) and create the appropriate protein. In the case of the vaccines, these proteins are viral proteins. Enough of the virus that your body can recognize it if/when you get truly infected, but not so much of the virus that you actually get the infection itself. Your body’s native DNA is left untouched.
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