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In genetics, a sense strand, or coding strand, is the segment within double-stranded DNA that carries the translatable code in the 5′ to 3′ direction, and which is complementary to the antisense strand of DNA, or template strand, which does not carry the translatable code in the 5′ to 3′ direction. [1]
By convention, the coding strand is the strand used when displaying a DNA sequence. It is presented in the 5' to 3' direction. Wherever a gene exists on a DNA molecule, one strand is the coding strand (or sense strand), and the other is the noncoding strand (also called the antisense strand, [3] anticoding strand, template strand or transcribed ...
However, the coding/sense strand need not always contain a code that is used to make a protein; both protein-coding and non-coding RNAs may be transcribed. The terms "sense" and "antisense" are relative only to the particular RNA transcript in question, and not to the DNA strand as a whole.
The non-template (sense) strand of DNA is called the coding strand, because its sequence is the same as the newly created RNA transcript (except for the substitution of uracil for thymine). This is the strand that is used by convention when presenting a DNA sequence.
It can also be represented in a DNA codon table. The DNA codons in such tables occur on the sense DNA strand and are arranged in a 5 ′-to-3 ′ direction. Different tables with alternate codons are used depending on the source of the genetic code, such as from a cell nucleus, mitochondrion, plastid, or hydrogenosome. [5]
Although DNA is a double-stranded molecule, typically only one of the strands encodes information that the RNA polymerase reads to produce protein-coding mRNA or non-coding RNA. This 'sense' or 'coding' strand, runs in the 5' to 3' direction where the numbers refer to the carbon atoms of the backbone's ribose sugar.
A complementary strand of DNA or RNA may be constructed based on nucleobase complementarity. [2] Each base pair, A = T vs. G ≡ C, takes up roughly the same space, thereby enabling a twisted DNA double helix formation without any spatial distortions. Hydrogen bonding between the nucleobases also stabilizes the DNA double helix. [3]
For example, in a typical gene a start codon (5′-ATG-3′) is a DNA sequence within the sense strand. Transcription begins at an upstream site (relative to the sense strand), and as it proceeds through the region it copies the 3′-TAC-5′ from the template strand to produce 5′-AUG-3′ within a messenger RNA (mRNA).
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