Blog Post Image: Deep Biosphere Harbors Active, Growing Communities of Microorganisms

A cell’s DNA carries the instructions, or genes, to make the proteins that are needed to build cell structures and to perform necessary functions. To make a protein, the instructions in the DNA are transcribed, or copied, to a molecule of messenger RNA (mRNA). Other molecules in the cell then help translate those instructions to assemble the protein by stringing together more than 20 different kinds of amino acids in a specific sequence. Messenger RNA provides vital clues about the processes a cell uses to survive, because it shows which genes are being used at a given time. (Illustration by Katherine Joyce, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)

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