(Molecular biology) To convert an mRNA sequence into the appropriate amino acid sequence of a protein, performed by molecular complexes called ribosomes. The coding regions of mRNA molecules are read by the ribosome in three-nucleotide groups termed codons. Each codon corresponds to a specific amino acid (although note that since there are 64 possible codons and only 20 amino acids, many amino acids are encoded by several different codons - this is known as the redundancy of the genetic code).