Question: What is DNA ?

Jim Caryl answered on 22 Jun 2011:

Have a read of this basic description of DNA http://beaker.sanfordburnham.org/?p=1961

Also have a watch of the video. It shows an animation of how the code of the DNA (the information it stores) in a gene (the functional unit of DNA that describes how to make a protein) is transcribed (copied) into a chemical cousin of DNA called RNA. It is this molecule that transfers the message to the protein-making machinery (called a ribosome) and acts as a template to make a protein from the correct order of amino acids (the building blocks of proteins). As different genes will have a different sequence of the bases that make up DNA, so too the RNA will carry these different sequences to the ribosome, and each protein will be made of a different sequence of amino acids – this is what leads to the many different shapes and sizes – and therefore functions – or proteins.