Vierstraete Andy (version 1.01) 1/02/2000
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The Central Dogma of Molecular Biology
Figure 1 : The Central Dogma of molecular biology.
DNA contains the complete genetic information that defines the structure and function of an
organism. Proteins are formed using the genetic code of the DNA. Three different processes are
responsible for the inheritance of genetic information and for its conversion from one form to
another :
1.
Replication
: a double stranded nucleic acid is duplicated to give identical copies. This
process perpetuates the genetic information.
2.
Transcription
: a DNA segment that constitutes a gene is read and transcribed into a