1. Enumerate the types of RNA molecules and explain their function(s).

- Ribonucleic acid (RNA) is a linear molecule composed of four types of smaller molecules

called ribonucleotide bases: adenine (A), cytosine (C), guanine (G), and uracil (U).

- Adenine is one of the two purine nucleobases (the other being guanine) used in forming

nucleotides of the nucleic acids. In DNA, adenine binds to thymine via two hydrogen bonds

to assist in stabilizing the nucleic acid structures. In RNA, which is used for protein

synthesis, adenine binds to uracil. Cytosine is an important part of DNA and RNA, where it

is one of the nitrogenous bases coding the genetic information these molecules carry.

Guanine can be part of a nucleotide. It is attached to a sugar and one or more phosphates.

DNA and RNA are both nucleic acids, made of nucleotides chained together. That makes

guanine an important part of genetic material. Guanine bonds to cytosine because they both

share three hydrogen bonds. Uracil is energetically less expensive to produce than thymine,

which may account for its use in RNA. In DNA, however, uracil is readily produced by

chemical degradation of cytosine, so having thymine as the normal base makes detection and

repair of such incipient mutations more efficient.

2. What is Transcription process? Explain thoroughly.

- Transcription is the process by which the information in a strand of DNA is copied into a

new molecule of messenger RNA (mRNA). Transcription is carried out by an enzyme called

RNA polymerase and a number of accessory proteins called transcription factors.

Transcription factors can bind to specific DNA sequences called enhancer and promoter

sequences in order to recruit RNA polymerase to an appropriate transcription site. Together,

the transcription factors and RNA polymerase form a complex called the transcription

initiation complex. This complex initiates transcription, and the RNA polymerase begins
 mRNA synthesis by matching complementary bases to the original DNA strand. The mRNA

molecule is elongated and, once the strand is completely synthesized, transcription is

terminated. The newly formed mRNA copies of the gene then serve as blueprints for protein

synthesis during the process of translation.

3. Enumerate and illustrate the steps in Transcription. Preferably, create a diagram of

the process.

Initiation Elongation Termination

- First step is Initiation. RNA polymerase binds to a sequence of DNA called the promoter,

found near the beginning of a gene. Each gene (or group of co-transcribed genes, in bacteria)

has its own promoter. Once bound, RNA polymerase separates the DNA strands, providing

the single-stranded template needed for transcription.

- Second step is Elongation. One strand of DNA, the template strand, acts as a template for

RNA polymerase. As it "reads" this template one base at a time, the polymerase builds an

RNA molecule out of complementary nucleotides, making a chain that grows from 5' to 3'.

The RNA transcript carries the same information as the non-template (coding) strand of

DNA, but it contains the base uracil (U) instead of thymine (T).

- Third step is Termination. Sequences called terminators signal that the RNA transcript is

complete. Once they are transcribed, they cause the transcript to be released from the RNA

polymerase.

4. What is post-transcription process? Explain thoroughly.

- Post-transcriptional modifications OF RNA accomplish two things: 1) Modifications help

the RNA molecule to be recognized by molecules that mediate RNA translation into

proteins; 2) During post-transcriptional processing, portions of the RNA chain that are not

supposed to be translated into proteins are cut out of the sequence. In this way, post-

transcriptional processing helps increase the efficiency of protein synthesis by allowing only

specific protein- coding RNA to go on to be translated. Without post-transcriptional

processing, protein synthesis could be significantly slowed, since it would take longer for

translation machinery to recognize RNA molecules and significantly more RNA would have

to be unnecessarily translated to achieve the same results.

5. Compare and contrast Splicing and Alternative Splicing.

- The difference between Splicing and Alternatives splicing: RNA Splicing is a modification

of the nascent pre-messenger RNA (pre-mRNA) transcript in which introns are removed and

eons are joined prior to translation. Splices the exons of the primary RNA transcript. The

mature mRNA contains all the exons in the primary transcript. It brings the protein coding

region together by removing the non-coding regions from the primary transcript. Alternative

Splicing is a process that enables a messenger RNA (mRNA) to direct synthesis of different

protein variants (isoforms) that may have different cellular functions or properties. Splices

the exons in the primary RNA transcript, forming differential combinations of exons. Mature

RNAs do not contain every exon of the primary RNA transcript. It increases the

informational diversity and the proteomic diversity of the cell. Splicing and Alternative

Splicing are two types of post-transcriptional modifications that follow the transcription of

eukaryotic genes. Both are responsible for the production of a mRNA molecule, which can

translate into functional protein. Both processes occur inside the nucleus.
 6. What is Translation process? Explain thoroughly.

- Translation is the process that takes the information passed from DNA as messenger RNA

and turns it into a series of amino acids bound together with peptide bonds. It is essentially a

translation from one code (nucleotide sequence) to another code (amino acid sequence). The

ribosome is the site of this action, just as RNA polymerase was the site of mRNA synthesis.

The ribosome matches the base sequence on the mRNA in sets of three bases (called codons)

to tRNA molecules that have the three complementary bases in their anticodon regions.

7. Enumerate and illustrate the steps in Translation. Preferably, create a diagram of

the process.

Activation Initiation Elongation Termination

- Translation happens in four stages: activation (make ready), initiation (start), elongation

(make longer) and termination (stop). The steps in translation are: the ribosome binds to

mRNA at a specific area, the ribosome starts matching tRNA anticodon sequences to the

mRNA codon sequence, each time a new tRNA comes into the ribosome, the amino acid

that it was carrying gets added to the elongating polypeptide chain, the ribosome continues

until it hits a stop sequence, then it releases the polypeptide and the mRNA, the polypeptide

forms into its native shape and starts acting as a functional protein in the cell.