Genetics R Us

If you've ever known someone who you've thought was the laziest person around, then you've never met DNA. DNA does absolutely no work. Like a person sitting in the sun all day without a care in the world, DNA is just that.

So what does DNA do all day? Well, we know that DNA contains the necessary instructions needed to construct a living organism. These instructions are then passed to the cell which carries out those instructions. Guess what!! You've figured it out. DNA simply passes it's instructions to the cells. But check this out, DNA is so lazy that it actually passes it's information to a messenger that then gives those instructions to the cell. The messenger is RNA. Let's meet RNA.

RNA stands for ribo-nucleic-acid. Like DNA, RNA is an acid the has an important function. It passes DNA's instructions on to the cell. Like DNA, RNA is composed of nucleotides. However, there are differences.
RNA has a base called uracil, instead of thymine. RNA, is
singled stranded, not doubled stranded as DNA is.

In addition, it turns out that RNA has the ability to start the formation of important chemicals. A substance that has the ability to cause a chemical reaction is called an enzyme. Because of this, many think that RNA may have came before DNA. This is an active area of research that many are investigating.

So now that we now know that RNA is basically a middleman that delivers the commands of DNA to the cell, the basic concept that should be floating around in your brillant minds should be the diagram shown toward your right.This is the basic central dogma of life that we learned about earlier.

Because RNA is basically a gopher, the term (m)RNA, is generally used. The "m" stands for messenger. It turns out that RNA has other special jobs too. In later sections,we will take a look at some the other odd jobs that RNA performs. For now, a basic understanding of RNA is all that is needed.

Like DNA, RNA has a history too. It's evolutionary history is currently being looked into. However, RNA has a history as far as when it was discovered. Much of the work done to reveal RNA's secrets was performed by this guy named Syndey Brenner. Shown toward your left is a picture of Mr. Brenner.

What Syndey Brenner did was astonishing! He deserves mentioning because his work showed how RNA passes the commands of DNA to the cell. Brenner discovered a unique language that RNA provides. This language, sort of like Morse Code, is what has been referred to as the Genetic Code. I am sure you have probably heard of this term before. In later sections of Genetics R Us, we will take a closer look at Mr. Brenner's work with RNA. At this point, though, a brief introduction to RNA is all that is needed. RNA is involved in a process called, transcription. It is the process of transcription that Syndey Brenner is known for and we will return to that later.