Prokaryotic release factors

There are three known prokaryotic release factors involved in the termination of translation.

• RF1 recognizes the stop codon UAG
• RF2 recognizes the stop codon UGA (both RF1 and RF2 recognize the stop codon UAA)
• RF3 promotes termination by either factor by accelerating dissociation.

The release factors provide the means of termination by having a conformation that mimics that of tRNA molecules. The decoding release factor binds to the A site of the ribosome and directly recognise the stop codon ^[1]. Once RF1 (or RF2) and RF3 are bound to the ribosome, the polypeptide is released, and the ribosome and release factors dissasemble, thus completing the process of translation ^[2].