Genetic Structure - Page 4

Ribonucleic acid (RNA)

The purpose of RNA (Ribonucleic acid) is to function in protein synthesis (more about this later in gene expression).

Image courtesy of http://ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

RNA is very similar to DNA in that it forms a long chain of bases except that it doesn't always have to be paired.

The structure of RNA is slightly different from DNA(A pairs with U instead of T).

RNA still has the same base structure as DNA but the bases are attached to a backbone of ribose sugar and a phosphate molecule. There are several different types of RNA.

We will only discuss one type - messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA).