From DNA to Proteins: Central Dogma Vocabulary

From DNA to Proteins: Key Terms

Read about and define the terms below. Develop and publish a concept map, flashcard set, or other creative visual aid to help yourself and others learn the connections between these ideas.

Anticodon:A sequence of three adjacent nucleotides located on one end of transfer RNA. It bounds to the complementary coding triplet of nucleotides in messenger RNA during translation phase of proton synthsis.

Codon:A set of three adjacent nucleotides, also called triplet, in nRNA that base-pair with the corresponding anticodn of tRNA molecule that carries a particular amino acid, hence, specifying the type and sequence of amino acids for protein synthesis.

Exon:1. The protein-coding region in the DNA.

2. The nucleic acid sequence in the DNA, or RNA transcript following genetic splicing.

Genetic Code:(Science: molecular biology) relationship between the sequence of bases in nucleic acid and the order of amino acids in the polypeptide synthesised from it. A sequenceof three nucleic acid bases (a triplet) acts as a codeword (codon) for one amino acid.

Intron:(molecular biology) A noncoding, intervening sequence of DNA within a gene that is transcribed into mRNA but is removed from the primary gene transcript and rapidly degraded during maturation of the RNA product

mRNA (messenger RNA):A type of RNA that carries the code or chemical blueprint for a specific protein. In the early stages of protein synthesis, the mRNA is synthesized from a DNA templateduring transcription.

Promoter:(genetics) A site in a DNA molecule at which RNA polymerase and transcription factors bind to initiate transcription of mRNA.

Protein-coding Gene:The boundaries of a protein-encoding geneare defined as the points at which transcription begins and ends. The core of thegene is the coding region, which contains the nucleotide sequence that is eventually translated into the sequence of amino acids in the protein.

Ribonucleic Acid (RNA):A nucleic acid that is generally single stranded (double stranded in some viruses and siRNA), composed of repeating nucleotide units of ribose sugar, phosphate group, and nitrogenous base.

RNA polymerase:Rna polymerase (RNAP or RNApol) is an enzyme that is responsible for making rna from a dna template. In all cells RNAP is needed for constructing rna chains from adna template, a process termed transcription. In scientific terms, RNAP is a nucleotidyl transferase that polymerizes ribonucleotides at the 3' end of an rna transcript. Rna polymerase enzymes are essential and are found in all organisms, cells, and many viruses.

Transcription:Transcription is the first step of gene expression, in which a particular segment of DNA is copied into RNA by the enzyme RNA polymerase. Both RNA and DNA are nucleic acids, which use base pairs of nucleotides as a complementary language that can be converted back and forth from DNA to RNA by the action of the correct enzymes. During transcription, a DNA sequence is read by an RNA polymerase, which produces a complementary, antiparallel RNA strand called a primary transcript. As opposed to DNA replication, transcription results in an RNA complement that includes the nucleotide uracil (U) in all instances where thymine (T) would have occurred in a DNA complement. Also unlike DNA replication where DNA is synthesized, transcription does not involve an RNA primer to initiate RNA synthesis.Although Transcription is nice.

Translation:A step in protein biosynthesis wherein the genetic code carried by mRNA is decoded to produce the specific sequence of amino acids in a polypeptide chain. The process follows transcription in which the DNA sequence is copied (or transcribed) into an mRNA.

tRNA (transfer RNA):RNA involved in protein synthesis, i.e. transporting specific amino acid to the ribosome to be added onto the growing polypeptide chain