 Nucleic acid similar to DNA.  Made of sugar ribose.  Generally single stranded.  Instead of thymine, uses uracil (U)

 mRNA- messenger that carries instructions for protein synthesis from DNA to rest of cell.  rRNA- proteins partially making up ribosomes.  tRNA- attaches individual amino acids to ribosomes during protein synthesis.

 Process of making RNA from DNA.  RNA polymerase binds and separates DNA strands and assembles RNA molecule.  Binds on a region called a promoter.

 RNA has to be edited before leaving the nucleus.  Introns, or regions of “junk”, are cut out leaving only exons, regions coding for proteins.

 There are 20 different amino acids.  Bases are read 3 at a time forming a codon.  Each codon possibility represents a different amino acid.

 P 303 of your book

 Ribosomes make proteins from mRNA’s instructions.  Cannot start until ribosome reads a start codon AUG. Anything before AUG is not translated.  After reading start, ribosome reads each codon until it reaches a stop sequence.

If DNA has a sequence of nucleotides: TAC GAC AAG TCC ACA ATC What is the amino acid sequence?