The full form of DNA and RNA is Deoxyribo Nucleic Acid and

Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) is a molecule that contains the biological instructions that make each species unique. DNA, along with the instructions it contains, is passed from adult organisms to their offspring during reproduction.

In organisms called eukaryotes, DNA is found inside a special area of the cell called the nucleus. Because the cell is very small, and because organisms have many DNA molecules per cell, each DNA molecule must be tightly packaged. This packaged form of the DNA is called a chromosome.

During DNA replication, DNA unwinds so it can be copied. At other times in the cell cycle, DNA also unwinds so that its instructions can be used to make proteins and for other biological processes. But during cell division, DNA is in its compact chromosome form to enable transfer to new cells.

Researchers refer to DNA found in the cell’s nucleus as nuclear DNA. An organism’s complete set of nuclear DNA is called its genome.

Besides the DNA located in the nucleus, humans and other complex organisms also have a small amount of DNA in cell structures known as mitochondria. Mitochondria generate the energy the cell needs to function properly.

In sexual reproduction, organisms inherit half of their nuclear DNA from the male parent and half from the female parent. However, organisms inherit all of their mitochondrial DNA from the female parent. This occurs because only egg cells, and not sperm cells, keep their mitochondria during fertilization.

DNA is made of chemical building blocks called nucleotides. These building blocks are made of three parts: a phosphate group, a sugar group and one of four types of nitrogen bases. To form a strand of DNA, nucleotides are linked into chains, with the phosphate and sugar groups alternating.

The four types of nitrogen bases found in nucleotides are: adenine (A), thymine (T), guanine (G) and cytosine (C). The order, or sequence, of these bases determines what biological instructions are contained in a strand of DNA. For example, the sequence ATCGTT might instruct for blue eyes, while ATCGCT might instruct for brown.

The complete DNA instruction book, or genome, for a human contains about 3 billion bases and about 20,000 genes on 23 pairs of chromosomes.

DNA contains the instructions needed for an organism to develop, survive and reproduce. To carry out these functions, DNA sequences must be converted into messages that can be used to produce proteins, which are the complex molecules that do most of the work in our bodies.

Each DNA sequence that contains instructions to make a protein is known as a gene. The size of a gene may vary greatly, ranging from about 1,000 bases to 1 million bases in humans. Genes only make up about 1 percent of the DNA sequence. DNA sequences outside this 1 percent are involved in regulating when, how and how much of a protein is made.

DNA’s instructions are used to make proteins in a two-step process. First, enzymes read the information in a DNA molecule and transcribe it into an intermediary molecule called messenger ribonucleic acid, or mRNA.

Next, the information contained in the mRNA molecule is translated into the “language” of amino acids, which are the building blocks of proteins. This language tells the cell’s protein-making machinery the precise order in which to link the amino acids to produce a specific protein. This is a major task because there are 20 types of amino acids, which can be placed in many different orders to form a wide variety of proteins.

Ribonucleic acid (RNA) is a molecule similar to DNA. Unlike DNA, RNA is single-stranded. An RNA strand has a backbone made of alternating sugar (ribose) and phosphate groups. Attached to each sugar is one of four bases–adenine (A), uracil (U), cytosine (C), or guanine (G). Different types of RNA exist in the cell: messenger RNA (mRNA), ribosomal RNA (rRNA), and transfer RNA (tRNA). More recently, some small RNAs have been found to be involved in regulating gene expression.

RNA, or ribonucleic acid, is a nucleic acid that is similar in structure to DNA but different in subtle ways. The cell uses RNA for a number of different tasks, one of which is called messenger RNA, or mRNA. And that is the nucleic acid information molecule that transfers information from the genome into proteins by translation. Another form of RNA is tRNA, or transfer RNA, and these are non-protein encoding RNA molecules that physically carry amino acids to the translation site that allows them to be assembled into chains of proteins in the process of translation.

RNA structure is thought to play a central role in many cellular processes, including transcription initiation, elongation and termination, mRNA splicing, and retroviral infection of eukaryotic cells.  Elucidating the mechanistic aspects of these intricate processes will require detailed understanding of the underlying RNA structure. RNA molecules usually possess a variety of single-stranded and double-stranded regions that give rise to complex three-dimensional structures. These structures are involved in the molecule’s interactions with other nucleic acids, proteins, and small molecules.  We have developed an extensive portfolio of products for the synthesis and modification of RNA in order to further understand the role of RNA structure.