Process
Transcription
Copying the DNA sequence of a gene into RNA.
Central dogma
Crick's principle that sequence information passes from nucleic acids to proteins and cannot pass from protein back to nucleic acid.Source: Crick, 1970
Idea or model
How Central dogma connects
Central dogma describes
Process
Translation
Ribosomes read messenger RNA three bases at a time and join the matching amino acids into a protein.
Studied in
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Sources & further reading
The explanations on this page are our own summaries of these sources. Follow a link to read the original; if anything here disagrees with it, the original wins. How we choose and check sources.
Central dogma of molecular biology (opens the original in a new tab)
Crick F (1970). Nature 227:561-563.
Crick's own statement of what the central dogma does and does not claim.
Historical paperPerspective