Given below is the sequence of coding strand of DNA in a transcription unit: 3'-AATGCAGCTATTAGG-5'. Write the

NCERT Exemplar · Q33

Q. Given below is the sequence of coding strand of DNA in a transcription unit: 3'-AATGCAGCTATTAGG-5'. Write the sequence of

(a) its complementary strand

(b) the mRNA.

Uttar Pradesh UpmspShort· 2mImportance★★★★★

49% · 47/96 Questions

🔒 Locked · start free trial →

You're viewing a preview — the full solution, concept, methods & PYQ mapping are locked.

Start your 14-day free trial to unlock the full solution →

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 …

Start your 14-day free trial to unlock the full solution →

In a transcription unit, the coding strand of DNA has the same sequence as the mRNA (except T replaced by U), while the complementary strand serves as the template for RNA synthesis.

When we talk about transcription, we are describing the process by which a segment of DNA is copied into RNA — specifically, messenger RNA (mRNA), in the case of protein-coding genes. The DNA in a transcription unit is double-stranded, but only one of the two strands acts as the template for RNA synthesis; the other, the coding (sense) strand, is not copied but has the same sequence as the resulting mRNA (except thymine is replaced by uracil).

The sequence given, 3'-AATGCAGCTATTAGG-5', is stated to be the coding strand.

(a) The complementary (template) strand. DNA's two strands are antiparallel and complementary: wherever one strand reads A, the other reads T at the same physical position, and wherever one reads G, the other reads C. Pairing every base of the given strand this way, at the same left-to-right position, gives the complementary strand — but since the strands run in opposite directions, this paired strand must be labelled 5' at the end where the coding strand is labelled 3', and vice versa:

3'-A A T G C A G C T A T T A G G-5' (coding strand, given)

5'-T T A C G T C G A T A A T C C-3' (complementary/template strand)

So the complementary strand is 5'-TTACGTCGATAATCC-3'.

Note

A common mistake here is to write the complementary strand in the same 3' to 5' orientation as the given strand. Because the two strands of DNA are antiparallel, the complementary strand's 5' end sits opposite the coding strand's 3' end. …

Start your 14-day free trial to unlock the full solution →

←Previous questionQ32 — What is the cause of discontinuous synthesis of DNA on one of the pare…→Next questionQ34 — What is DNA polymorphism? Why is it important to study it?

Q.Given below is the sequence of coding strand of DNA in a transcription unit: 3'-AATGCAGCTATTAGG-5'. Write the sequence of

🎓Unlock everything free for 14 days

Unlock everything free for 14 days