transcription? How to make tissue-specific transcription for tissue-specific functions?
Solution
17.Transcription is the first step of gene expression, in which a particular segment of DNA is
copied into (especially mRNA) by the enzyme RNA polymerase. Both DNA and RNA are
nucleic acids, which use base pairsof nucleotides as a complementary language. During
transcription, a DNA sequence is read by an RNA polymerase, which produces a
complementary, antiparallel RNA strand called a primary transcript.
Transcription proceeds in the following general steps:
The stretch of DNA transcribed into an RNA molecule is called a transcription unit and encodes
at least one gene. If the gene encodes a protein, the transcription produces messenger RNA
(mRNA); the mRNA, in turn, serves as a template for the protein\'s synthesis through translation.
Alternatively, the transcribed gene may encode for either non-coding RNA (such as microRNA),
ribosomal RNA (rRNA), transfer RNA (tRNA), or other enzymatic RNA molecules called
ribozymes. Overall, RNA helps synthesize, regulate, and process proteins; it therefore plays a
fundamental role in performing functions within a cell.
In virology, the term may also be used when referring to mRNA synthesis from an RNA
molecule (i.e., RNA replication). For instance, the genome of a negative-sense single-stranded
RNA (ssRNA -) virus may be template for a positive-sense single-stranded RNA (ssRNA +).
This is because the positive-sense strand contains the information needed to translate the viral
proteins for viral replication afterwards. This process is catalyzed by a viral RNA replicase.
Regulation RNA transcription-
In molecular biology and genetics, transcriptional regulation is the means by which a cell
regulates the conversion of DNAto RNA (transcription), thereby orchestrating gene activity. A
single gene can be regulated in a range of ways, from altering the number of copies of RNA that
are transcribed, to the temporal control of when the gene is transcribed. This control allows the
cell or organism to respond to a variety of intra- and extracellular signals and thus mount a
response. Some examples of this include producing the mRNA that encode enzymes to adapt to a
change in a food source, producing the gene products involved in cell cycle specific activities,
and producing the gene products responsible for cellular differentiation in higher eukaryotes, as
studied in evolutionary developmental biology.
The regulation of transcription is a vital process in all living organisms. It is orchestrated by
transcription factors and other proteins working in concert to finely tune the amount of RNA
being produced through a variety of mechanisms. Prokaryoticorganisms and eukaryotic