So we see that the larger subunits the will be found farther down our test tube than the because the are basically heavier molecules. Now, what exactly is the purpose of these small and large subunits? Well, basically before our translation actually takes place, the small and large subunits are separated. They only come together during the process of translation as we'll see in just a moment and the purpose of our ribosome. So basically the large and the small subunit combined to form the ribosome. And the purpose of the ribosome is to basically translate the sequence of nucleotides into the proper sequence of amino acids.