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Description
What you see before you is a basic diagram I made of the biological processes involved in the decoding of information in DNA that gets translated into an almost infinite variety of protiens that perform all kinds of functions for individual cells and the organisms that they may constitute. The overall process, known as protien synthesis, is one of the most elegant and fundamental processes common to virtually all life on this planet. My biology textbook did not have an illustration that tied the different parts of the process together, so I was inspired to make my own. It leaves out some of the more tedious details and the shape of the ribosomes aren't quite right (I didn't know what they looked like at the time, so I imagined) but the diagram gives a good summary of the process.

You really should know how this works so, with the help of the diagram, I'll walk you through it:

Let us venture into the world of the microscopic, we're not quite on the atomic scale, but damn near close. We are inside one of your cells, a eukaryotic cell. In the upper left we see the cell nucleus, thats where all the DNA is kept. Outside the nucleus is a watery fluid called cytoplasm. For illustration purposes I made it yellow, but normally it would be clear. Just like we have organs on a large scale, the cell has organelles on a very small scale. These organelles include the ones labeled in the diagram: Rough Endoplasmic Reticulum, Golgi Apparatus and Mitochondria.

So now that we've established the basic parts involved, lets take a closer look at what's going on inside the nucleus (big purple circle). Here we find our DNA (blue line) rapped up in its double helix. DNA stores the information that make up an organism using nucleotides, it is like the blue print used to build an organism. The multi-colored bars with letters strung along the line represents the 4 major nucleotides that hold the information.

A = Adonine which binds to T = Thyonine in DNA and U = Uracil in RNA

C = Cytocine which binds to G = Guanine

You can think of the nucleotides as letters in an alphabet. Depending on how these letters are arranged, they will make different words, that will make sentences that will give instructions about operating the organism.

When a particular process needs to happen a strand of DNA will open, like opening a manual. The neucleotides will separate and a protien called RNA Polymerase will run across the side of DNA that needs to be read. The Polymerase acts to bind RNA to the DNA that will form a strand of messenger RNA. What does RNA do? Among other things, RNA is the messenger between the DNA in the nucleus and the organelles outside the nucleus that will use the DNA information provided by the RNA to create proteins. The DNA never goes outside the nucleus so it gets copied to RNA that ventures outside the nucleus to relay the info. So a strand of RNA carrying the DNA info will be created from the DNA, this is called transcription, and will be edited a bit before it leaves the neucleus. The red arrows are the snippets of RNA being removed. The RNA introns will be deleted and the RNA exons will stay to venture outside the neucleus.

Once outside the nucleus, the RNA strand will make its way to the ribosomes located on the rough endoplasmic reticulum. The ribosomes are the builders that read the information provided in the RNA and piece together the amino acids to form the beginnings of proteins. This is called translation: the DNA information has been translated into proteins. What are all those objects with circles and abbreviations? Those are transport RNA that carry the amino acids to the work site of the ribosomes. The ribosomes match the nucleotides up from transportation RNA with the messanger RNA in the order the they are received. The amino acids attach to each other to create the protein.

From here the protein is shaped and further processed in the rough endoplasmic reticulum and the golgi apparatus. The unique shape of the finished proteins allows them to do work on the cellular level and create all kinds of structures ie: the horns of an elk, the hair on a dog, feathers of a bird, scales on a fish, surface of your skin . . . . . amazing!

Of course the process gets much more complicated than this, I tried to stream line the explaination as much as possible . . . but if you have any questions feel free to ask.

Description
What you see before you is a basic diagram I made of the biological processes involved in the decoding of information in DNA that gets translated into an almost infinite variety of protiens that perform all kinds of functions for individual cells and the organisms that they may constitute. The overall process, known as protien synthesis, is one of the most elegant and fundamental processes common to virtually all life on this planet. My biology textbook did not have an illustration that tied the different parts of the process together, so I was inspired to make my own. It leaves out some of the more tedious details and the shape of the ribosomes aren't quite right (I didn't know what they looked like at the time, so I imagined) but the diagram gives a good summary of the process.

You really should know how this works so, with the help of the diagram, I'll walk you through it:

Let us venture into the world of the microscopic, we're not quite on the atomic scale, but damn near close. We are inside one of your cells, a eukaryotic cell. In the upper left we see the cell nucleus, thats where all the DNA is kept. Outside the nucleus is a watery fluid called cytoplasm. For illustration purposes I made it yellow, but normally it would be clear. Just like we have organs on a large scale, the cell has organelles on a very small scale. These organelles include the ones labeled in the diagram: Rough Endoplasmic Reticulum, Golgi Apparatus and Mitochondria.

So now that we've established the basic parts involved, lets take a closer look at what's going on inside the nucleus (big purple circle). Here we find our DNA (blue line) rapped up in its double helix. DNA stores the information that make up an organism using nucleotides, it is like the blue print used to build an organism. The multi-colored bars with letters strung along the line represents the 4 major nucleotides that hold the information.

A = Adonine which binds to T = Thyonine in DNA and U = Uracil in RNA

C = Cytocine which binds to G = Guanine

You can think of the nucleotides as letters in an alphabet. Depending on how these letters are arranged, they will make different words, that will make sentences that will give instructions about operating the organism.

When a particular process needs to happen a strand of DNA will open, like opening a manual. The neucleotides will separate and a protien called RNA Polymerase will run across the side of DNA that needs to be read. The Polymerase acts to bind RNA to the DNA that will form a strand of messenger RNA. What does RNA do? Among other things, RNA is the messenger between the DNA in the nucleus and the organelles outside the nucleus that will use the DNA information provided by the RNA to create proteins. The DNA never goes outside the nucleus so it gets copied to RNA that ventures outside the nucleus to relay the info. So a strand of RNA carrying the DNA info will be created from the DNA, this is called transcription, and will be edited a bit before it leaves the neucleus. The red arrows are the snippets of RNA being removed. The RNA introns will be deleted and the RNA exons will stay to venture outside the neucleus.

Once outside the nucleus, the RNA strand will make its way to the ribosomes located on the rough endoplasmic reticulum. The ribosomes are the builders that read the information provided in the RNA and piece together the amino acids to form the beginnings of proteins. This is called translation: the DNA information has been translated into proteins. What are all those objects with circles and abbreviations? Those are transport RNA that carry the amino acids to the work site of the ribosomes. The ribosomes match the nucleotides up from transportation RNA with the messanger RNA in the order the they are received. The amino acids attach to each other to create the protein.

From here the protein is shaped and further processed in the rough endoplasmic reticulum and the golgi apparatus. The unique shape of the finished proteins allows them to do work on the cellular level and create all kinds of structures ie: the horns of an elk, the hair on a dog, feathers of a bird, scales on a fish, surface of your skin . . . . . amazing!

Of course the process gets much more complicated than this, I tried to stream line the explaination as much as possible . . . but if you have any questions feel free to ask.