Biology – Protein synthesis | e-Consult

The template strand serves as the blueprint for mRNA synthesis. It is read by the RNA polymerase in the 3' to 5' direction. The RNA polymerase uses the template strand's sequence to assemble a complementary mRNA molecule in the 5' to 3' direction. The sequence of the template strand is directly reflected in the sequence of the mRNA, with uracil (U) replacing thymine (T) in the mRNA.

The non-template strand (also known as the coding strand) has the same sequence as the mRNA, except that it contains thymine (T) instead of uracil (U). Therefore, the sequence of the non-template strand is the same as the mRNA sequence, except that T replaces U. This allows us to determine the mRNA sequence by reading the non-template strand. The non-template strand is not directly involved in the synthesis of the mRNA, but its sequence is crucial for understanding the relationship between the DNA and RNA sequences.