Transcription
1) How is mRNA different than DNA?
– DNA has a sugar named deoxyribose, mRNA has a sugar named sugar-ribose, DNA has a unique base of thymine when mRNA has a unique base of uracil, the structure of DNA has two backbones and is very long, when mRNAs structure is very short and has one backbone.

2) Describe the process of transcription
– a specific section of DNA unwinds, exposing one gene
– along one strand- complimentary RNA bases bond (uracil will bond with DNAs adenine
– adjacent nucleotides form covalent bonds and build RNA backbone
– RNA is released. DNA reforms double helix

3) How did todays activity do a good job of modeling the process of RNA transcription? In what ways was our model inaccurate?
– todays activity demonstrated a general idea of how mRNA is created through translation by having different colour beads to represent uracil from Thymine and for RNA we used a different color pipe cleaner, to make it easier to separate the nitrogen bases bonds.
– our model was inaccurate because our DNA strand was the same length as our RNA strand when in reality DNA is way longer then RNA.

Translation

1) describe the process of translation: Initiation, Elongation, and termination

– Initiation: mRNA binds to the small ribosome subunit, then the 2 ribosomes subunits bind together.

  mRNA binds to ribosomes

  

– Elongation: Ribosome hold mRNA and allows complimentary tRNA to attach to binding sites

– mRNA has 3 letter code called “codon
– each of the 64 possible codons is specific you one of the 20 amino acids
– tRNA binds with “p” site, another tRNA binds to “A” site binding causes change—Amino acid lets go of tRNA and binds to neighboring amino aci
-empty tRNA leaves ribosomes, ribosome moves along mRNA— now 2nd tRNA s at “p” site and new tRNA binds to mRNA codon at “a” site

– Termination: the elongation cycle continues until mRNA reads a stop codon
– a “3-letter word” which does not have a matching tRNA
– no new amino acid is added to the chain, so the ribosome dissociates into its two subunits and the polypeptide s released

2) How did todays activity do a good job of modelling the process of translation? In what ways was our model inaccurate
– Todays activity demonstrated the general idea of the process of translation because the paper made it easy for us to visualize the process. The elongation steps were similar to the real process n the body because the paper moved easily.
– one way our model was inaccurate was with the ribosome, the paper was in one whole piece instead of two subunits.