Naked Science Forum

Life Sciences => Cells, Microbes & Viruses => Topic started by: thedoc on 29/09/2015 08:50:01

Title: When transcribing DNA how do we know which way round it is?
Post by: thedoc on 29/09/2015 08:50:01

Peter Palmer asked the Naked Scientists:
   
Since both DNA strands have a 3' end, and I know of no means a cell can differentiate sense from anti-sense, (other than potentially distance to the centromere), is there a reason a reverse complement incorporating the combined promoter and starter sequences is unlikely, in order to avoid spurious primary transciptions?

What do you think?

Title: Re: When transcribing DNA how do we know which way round it is?
Post by: evan_au on 29/09/2015 11:39:07

Reading complementary DNA is likely to end up hitting a "STOP" codon fairly quickly?
...But this would still leave a lot of short junk RNA sequences floating around...