Living cells are all about producing proteins for all kind of purposes, joining amino acids which are the building block of all the proteins.

Even the structure which gives the shape to the cell (and has a lot of other functions), the cytoskeleton, is made by proteins.

Proteins are usually synthesized in ribosomes and then they assemble in complex structures.

This is what it’s happening right here in the animation! This small network is producing microtubules, which are used to route items on the ground of the cell, in two steps:

• first simple amino acids (round spheres) are crafted into tubulin in ribosomes
• then a red tubulin and a green tubulin are assembled into a finished microtubule