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Genes tell cells what to do by telling them which proteins to make and in what amounts. Genes are expressed by being transcribed into RNA, and this RNA then translated into protein. Proteins are made of a chain of 20 different types of amino acid molecules. This chain folds up into a compact shape, rather like an untidy ball of string.
The words protein, polypeptide, and peptide are a little ambiguous and can overlap in meaning. Protein is generally used to refer to the complete biological molecule in a stable conformation, whereas peptide is generally reserved for a short amino acid oligomers often lacking a stable 3D structure. But the boundary between the two is not well ...
Efforts to understand how proteins are encoded began after DNA's structure was discovered in 1953. The key discoverers, English biophysicist Francis Crick and American biologist James Watson, working together at the Cavendish Laboratory of the University of Cambridge, hypothesied that information flows from DNA and that there is a link between DNA and proteins. [2]
For most proteins it requires other chaperone proteins to control the form of the product. Some proteins then excise internal segments from their own peptide chains, splicing the free ends that border the gap; in such processes the inside "discarded" sections are called inteins. Other proteins must be split into multiple sections without splicing.
This is an accepted version of this page This is the latest accepted revision, reviewed on 11 January 2025. Science of genes, heredity, and variation in living organisms This article is about the general scientific term. For the scientific journal, see Genetics (journal). For a more accessible and less technical introduction to this topic, see Introduction to genetics. For the Meghan Trainor ...
Proteins that are supposed to be produced at the endoplasmic reticulum are recognised part-way through the translation process. This is governed by the signal recognition particle—a protein that binds to the ribosome and directs it to the endoplasmic reticulum when it finds a signal peptide on the growing (nascent) amino acid chain. [29]
Eye color is an example of a (physical) phenotypic trait. A phenotypic trait, [1] [2] simply trait, or character state [3] [4] is a distinct variant of a phenotypic characteristic of an organism; it may be either inherited or determined environmentally, but typically occurs as a combination of the two. [5]
X-linked dominant inheritance will show the same phenotype as a heterozygote and homozygote. Just like X-linked inheritance, there will be a lack of male-to-male inheritance, which makes it distinguishable from autosomal traits. One example of an X-linked trait is Coffin–Lowry syndrome, which is caused by a mutation in ribosomal protein gene ...