Genetic translation, computer diagram. This process uses genetic information to direct the synthesis of proteins. The main molecules involved are two types of RNA (ribonucleic acid). mRNA (messenger RNA, top right) carries a working copy (transcript) of the information in the relevant gene. Genes comprise a sequence of nucleotide triplets (codons), each coding for an amino acid. tRNAs (transfer RNA, cloverleaf shape) each carry a single amino acid (not shown) and have an anticodon loop which binds to the corresponding codon (upper right). A sequence of codons is thus translated to a sequence of amino acids, which are joined to make a protein.