In: Biology
For a given RNA sequence, there are 3 possible ORFs. How is the actual ORF determined by the cell?
Answer-In molecular genetics, an open reading frame (ORF) is the part of a reading frame that has the ability to be translated. An ORF is a continuous stretch of codons that begins with a start codon (usually AUG) and ends at a stop codon (usually UAA, UAG or UGA).An ATG codon (AUG in terms of RNA) within the ORF (not necessarily the first) may indicate where translation starts. The transcription termination site is located after the ORF, beyond the translation stop codon. If transcription were to cease before the stop codon, an incomplete protein would be made during translation. In eukaryotic genes with multiple exons, introns are removed and exons are then joined together after transcription to yield the final mRNA for protein translation. In the context of gene finding, the start-stop definition of an ORF therefore only applies to spliced mRNAs, not genomic DNA, since introns may contain stop codons and/or cause shifts between reading frames.