Overview
In molecular biology, messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) is a single-stranded molecule of RNA that corresponds to the genetic sequence of a gene, and is read by a ribosome in the process of synthesizing a protein.
mRNA is created during the process of transcription, where an enzyme (RNA polymerase) converts the gene into primary transcript mRNA (also known as pr…
Synthesis, processing and function
The brief existence of an mRNA molecule begins with transcription, and ultimately ends in degradation. During its life, an mRNA molecule may also be processed, edited, and transported prior to translation. Eukaryotic mRNA molecules often require extensive processing and transport, while prokaryotic mRNA molecules do not. A molecule of eukaryotic mRNA and the proteins surr…
Structure
Coding regions are composed of codons, which are decoded and translated into proteins by the ribosome; in eukaryotes usually into one and in prokaryotes usually into several. Coding regions begin with the start codon and end with a stop codon. In general, the start codon is an AUG triplet and the stop codon is UAG ("amber"), UAA ("ochre"), or UGA ("opal"). The coding regions tend to b…
Degradation
Different mRNAs within the same cell have distinct lifetimes (stabilities). In bacterial cells, individual mRNAs can survive from seconds to more than an hour. However, the lifetime averages between 1 and 3 minutes, making bacterial mRNA much less stable than eukaryotic mRNA. In mammalian cells, mRNA lifetimes range from several minutes to days. The greater the stability of an m…
Applications
The administration of a nucleoside-modified messenger RNA sequence can cause a cell to make a protein, which in turn could directly treat a disease or could function as a vaccine; more indirectly the protein could drive an endogenous stem cell to differentiate in a desired way.
The primary challenges of RNA therapy center on delivering the RNA to the appropriate cells. Challenges include the fact that naked RNA sequences naturally degrade after preparation; the…
History
Several molecular biology studies during the 1950s indicated that RNA played some kind of role in protein synthesis, but that role was not clearly understood. For instance, in one of the earliest reports, Jacques Monod and his team showed that RNA synthesis was necessary for protein synthesis, specifically during the production of the enzyme β-galactosidase in the bacterium E. coli. Arthur Pardee also found similar RNA accumulation in 1954. In 1953, Alfred Hershey, June Dixon…
See also
• GeneCalling, an mRNA profiling technology
• Missense mRNA
• mRNA display
• mRNA surveillance
• Transcriptome, the sum of all RNA in a cell
External links
• RNAi Atlas: a database of RNAi libraries and their target analysis results
• miRSearch Archived 2012-12-04 at the Wayback Machine: Tool for finding microRNAs that target mRNA
• How mRNA is coded?: YouTube video