If the sequence of nitrogen bases of the coding strand of DNA in a transcription unit is: 5'-ATGAATG-3', the s

NCERT Exemplar · Q23

Q. If the sequence of nitrogen bases of the coding strand of DNA in a transcription unit is: 5'-ATGAATG-3', the sequence of bases in its RNA transcript would be:

(a) 5'-AUGAAUG-3'

(b) 5'-UACUUAC-3'

(d) 5'-GUAAGUA-3'

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Concept understanding — Template Strand Transcription

Template Strand Transcription: A First Look

Imagine you have a master recipe book written in a language only the head chef can read. To share a recipe with the kitchen staff, you don't hand them the original book — you make a working copy on a separate sheet, using the original as your guide. That original page you read from is the template. The copy you produce is the transcript.

In a cell, the master recipe book is DNA. It holds all the instructions for making proteins, which do almost everything in your body. But DNA never leaves the nucleus — it's too precious and too large. So the cell makes a temporary, portable copy of a specific instruction. That copy is called messenger RNA (mRNA).

The process of making this mRNA copy is transcription. And the strand of DNA that is actually read to make the copy is called the template strand.

The Precise Meaning

DNA is a double helix — two strands twisted together. During transcription, the cell unzips a small section of this helix. Only one of the two strands serves as the blueprint. That strand is the template strand. The other strand, called the coding strand (or non-template strand), is not read — it just sits there, matching the sequence of the mRNA that gets made (with one chemical difference: DNA uses T, RNA uses U).

So the template strand is the actual DNA sequence that RNA polymerase (the enzyme that does the copying) reads and uses to build a complementary mRNA molecule.

Note

Think of the template strand as the negative of a photograph. The mRNA is the print made from that negative. The coding strand is like a second print that happens to look almost identical to the final photo — but it wasn't used to make it.

Why It Matters

Accuracy: The cell must read the correct strand. If it read the wrong one, the mRNA would be nonsense and the protein would be wrong or non-functional.
Direction: RNA polymerase reads the template strand in the 3' to 5' direction, and builds mRNA in the 5' to 3' direction. This is a fixed rule — like reading a sentence left to right.
Gene regulation: Which strand is the template for a given gene is fixed. But different genes on the same DNA molecule may use different strands as their template. So a single stretch of DNA can contain genes pointing in opposite directions.

A Simple Example

Suppose a short stretch of DNA has these two strands:

Strand A: ATGCGT
Strand B: TACGCA

If Strand A is the template, the mRNA made will be complementary to it: UACGCA (remember, U replaces T in RNA).

If Strand B is the template, the mRNA will be complementary to B: AUGCGU.

The two mRNAs are completely different. So the cell must know, for each gene, which strand is the template. That information is encoded in the DNA sequence itself — in the promoter region that tells RNA polymerase where to start and which way to go.

Important

The template strand is not the same as the coding strand. The mRNA sequence is identical to the coding strand (with U instead of T), but it is complementary to the template strand. This is a common confusion — the mRNA looks like the coding strand, but it was built from the template strand.

What NCERT Says …

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The RNA transcript is synthesized complementary and antiparallel to the template strand (not the coding strand); since the coding strand runs 5'-ATGAATG-3', the template strand is 3'-TACTTAC-5', yielding an RNA transcript of 5'-AUGAAUG-3'.

The heart of transcription lies in understanding which DNA strand serves as the blueprint. A transcription unit contains two strands: the template strand (also called the antisense strand) and the coding strand (also called the sense strand). The coding strand is so named because its sequence—except for thymine in place of uracil—matches the RNA transcript that will be produced. But here's the crucial point: RNA polymerase does not read the coding strand. It reads the template strand.

When RNA polymerase moves along the DNA, it synthesizes RNA in the 5' to 3' direction by reading the template strand in the 3' to 5' direction. The new RNA strand is complementary and antiparallel to the template strand. This means if you want to predict the RNA sequence, you must first identify the template strand, then apply base-pairing rules: adenine pairs with uracil (in RNA), and cytosine pairs with guanine.

The question gives us the coding strand: 5'-ATGAATG-3'. To find the RNA transcript, we need the template strand. Since the two strands of DNA are complementary and antiparallel, the template strand runs in the opposite direction:

Coding strand: 5'-ATGAATG-3'
Template strand: 3'-TACTTAC-5'

Now RNA polymerase reads this template strand (3' to 5') and builds RNA (5' to 3') by pairing:

Template T → RNA A
Template A → RNA U
Template C → RNA G
Template T → RNA A
Template T → RNA A …

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Q.If the sequence of nitrogen bases of the coding strand of DNA in a transcription unit is: 5'-ATGAATG-3', the sequence of bases in its RNA transcript would be:

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