An overview of DNA and RNA as used in Molecular Biology
The genetic material of living organisms is made up of Deoxyribonucleic acid(DNA) or Ribonucleic acid (RNA). The primary structure of DNA and RNA is made up of a sequence of nucleotide bases. The structure of DNA can be a double-stranded or single-stranded sequence of nucleotides(bases). For double-stranded nucleic acids, the nucleotide bases pair in a given rule which is unique to DNA and RNA. For DNA, there exist four types of bases namely; Adenine(A), Thymine(T), Guanine(G), and Cytosine(C). Therefore, DNA can be identified as containing ATGC bases. The pairing of bases in DNA is that Adenine pairs with Thymine(with a double bond) while Guanine Pairs with Cytosine (with a triple bond). i.e A=T and G≡C as shown below.
DNA base pairing. The upper strand is complementary to the downer strand and vice versa
For RNA, all instances of Thymine are replaced by Uracil. This means that for double-stranded RNA, Adenine pairs with Uracil while Guanine pairs with Cytosine A=U and G≡C as shown below:
RNA base pairing. Each strand is a complementary sequence to one another
Reverse complement of DNA strand using Python
In this article, we will cover, how to Reverse the complement of DNA or RNA sequences in Python.
Example:
DNA strand: ATGCCGAGCA Complementary Strand: TACGGCTCGT Reverse-Complementary strand: ACGAGCCGTA