A key part of almost every living organism’s growth is cell division and this process has a lot of nuances that can lead to definitions getting muddled.
One of these common confusions is between cell replication and cell transcription. While both of these processes revolve around the division of cells, they have key differences that make these processes easy to identify.
What Is Cell Replication?
Cell replication is when a cell replicates its DNA within its genome to make it so the two daughter cells it creates have the same genetic makeup as the original cell. The DNA is copied within the cell in preparation for mitosis.
What Is Cell Transcription?
Cell transcription is the process of the cell copying its DNA into RNA. The process is also known as RNA synthesis and the codons of a gene are copied onto an RNA messenger (also known as mRNA) by RNA polymerase.
The mRNA then travels to the cytoplasm of the cell where it is translated into protein, this process is called gene expression.
Now you know the main differences between cell replication and cell translation, let’s look at some more specific comparisons between the processes to further distinguish them.
What Is The Purpose Of Cell Replication And Cell Transcription?
The purpose of cell replication is to make two daughter strands from an original strand wherein each of these daughter strands will have half of the original strand’s DNA helix.
Cell replication is designed to conserve the genome for the next generation of DNA. The purpose of cell transcription is to synthesize RNA by using an original strand of DNA as a template instead of splitting the strand as replication does.
Cell transcription is designed to make individual RNA copies of a particular gene.
What Enzymes Are Needed For Cell Replication And Cell Transcription?
Cell replication requires DNA Helicase as well as DNA Polymerase. Cell transcription on the other hand requires Transcripate and RNA polymerase. Transcripate is a certain type of DNA Helicase.
When Does Cell Replication And Cell Transcription Take Place?
Cell replication occurs in the S phase of the cell cycle, cell transcription, however, takes place in the G1 as well as the G2 phase of the cell cycle.
Cell replication takes place in preparation for cell division while cell transcription is in preparation for protein translation. Replication occurs on the strands of DNA while transcription takes place on one strand of DNA.
What Are The Raw Materials Of Cell Replication And Cell Transcription?
The raw materials used for cell replication are dATP, dGTP, dCTP, and finally dTTP. Cell transcription on the other hand uses ATP, GTP, CTP, and, UTP as raw materials.
What Bond Changes Occur In Cell Replication And Cell Transcription?
The replicated DNA will remain with a hydrogen bond to its template DNA strand within cell replication. In cell transcription, however, the transcribed RNA will separate from the DNA template strand.
What Primers Are Needed For Cell Replication And Cell Transcription?
Cell replication will require an RNA primer to start replication, however, cell transcription does not require any primers to begin.
What Products Does Cell Replication And Cell Transcription Produce?
Replication produces two daughter strands of DNA that will remain within the nucleus and are not degraded.
Transcription produces mRNA, tRNA, rRNA, and similar non-coding RNA like microRNA for example, these products mostly go from the nucleus to the cytoplasm and will be degraded once the process is complete.
What Differences Are There Between The Process Of Cell Replication And Cell Transcription?
Cell replication entails copying the whole genome and unwinding and splitting an entire DNA molecule, it will produce normal DNA molecules which will not need processing.
Cell transcription entails copying only certain individual genes and the process involves unwinding and splitting only these specific genes to be transcribed. The produced RNA transcript will need processing to get to its necessary form and size.
Final Thoughts
So these are the differences between cell replication and transcription, so even though they seem quite similar, they have many glaring differences.
Ever since I was a little girl, I have been fascinated by science. Every holiday I would ask for the newest science kit, and spend weeks learning with it.
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