• Question: How does Gene maintain certain types of information?

    Asked by bricklayingbob to Amelia, Jim, Liz, Prateek, Richard on 22 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Jim Caryl

      Jim Caryl answered on 21 Jun 2011:

      A gene is basically the functional unit of DNA, it is the region of DNA that encodes the DNA sequence that codes for a protein, and the DNA sequence is essentially the order of the nucleic acid ‘bases’ that DNA is made from. There may be between a few hundred DNA bases in some genes, to over a million in others.

      Each gene is a set of instructions that directs how the protein it encodes should be made. It does this by copying this ‘information’ – the order of the bases – to another nucleic acid molecule called RNA. It is then this RNA that acts as the scaffold for how the protein is put together; the ‘information’ of the gene is passed on to the protein via the RNA sequence, which directs the specific order of different amino acids that are the building blocks of protein.

      The proteins ultimately encoded by genes come in many shapes and sizes, but can be broadly divided into structural proteins, the basic building blocks of the cell; and enzymes, which are the ‘workers’ of the cell, carrying out all sorts of reactions that keep your cell (and therefore *you*) alive.

    • Photo: Amelia Markey

      Amelia Markey answered on 22 Jun 2011:

      DNA is like a code. This code is made up of 4 letters: G, A, T and C.

      We don’t know what a lot of this code means but we do know what a lot of the genes mean. Like Jim says the genes are the bit of the code that tells your body to make a certain protein. The DNA code in a gene matches an RNA code and this RNA code matches a certain protein. In this way genes hold the information for the proteins that your body produces whether these are proteins that perform reactions or proteins that hold the cells of your body together.

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