How genes are expressed from "summary" of Biology by Neil A. Campbell
Genes are the units of heredity, containing specific instructions for making proteins. The process by which these instructions are used to produce a functional product is called gene expression. Gene expression involves two main stages: transcription and translation. Transcription is the first step in gene expression, where a segment of DNA is copied into a messenger RNA (mRNA) molecule by an enzyme called RNA polymerase. This mRNA molecule carries the genetic information from the nucleus to the cytoplasm, where protein synthesis takes place. During transcription, only one of the two DNA strands, known as the template strand, is used as a template to synthesize the mRNA molecule. Translation is the second stage of gene expression, where the information carried by the mRNA molecule is used to assemble a specific sequence of amino acids into a protein. This process occurs in the ribosomes, which are the cellular structures responsible for protein synthesis. Transfer RNA (tRNA) molecules bring the appropriate amino acids to the ribosome, based on the codons (three-nucleotide sequences) on the mRNA molecule. The genetic code is the set of rules that spec...
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