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RNA & Protein Synthesis
A. Structure
1. Made of a single strand of nucleotides
2. Each nucleotide consists of
a. five carbon sugar (ribose)
b. phosphate group
c. nitrogenous base (adenine, URACIL, guanine, cytosine)
B. Transcription (DNA & mRNA)
1. Occurs in the nucleus
2. RNA polymerase
a. Binds to the DNA at the promoter site
b. “unzips” the DNA and uses one strand as a template
c. adenine always binds with uracil (A – U); cytosine
always binds with guanine (C – G); thymine will bind with
adenine
3. RNA edits itself, getting rid of introns and only “reading”
exons.
C. Translation (mRNA & tRNA)
1. Occurs on the ribosome
2. Each codon (3 bases) enters the ribosome. The tRNA brings
in an amino acid, based on its anticodon (complimentary to the codon)
3. The amino acids bond with a peptide bond and form a
polypeptide chain.
4. A protein is born!