translation from DNA

[jannat]

translation from DNA

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Post by jannat » Sun Sep 28, 2014 6:27 am

why come proteins need RNA for translation. why cant they translate from DNA itself... All it needs is triplet of codons which can be provided by DNA too??

[jonmoulton]

Re: translation from DNA

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Post by jonmoulton » Mon Sep 29, 2014 3:03 pm

That's a reasonable idea. I can imagine a ribosome directly binding to DNA to translate the DNA codons directly into protein. We can't really tell why that didn't happen, as much of the early development of life occurred far in the past and left no evidence of the steps in the process; we must infer the process from observing modern biochemistry. However, I can speculate that much of the regulation of gene expression occurs at the RNA level, with variations in the stability of RNA, translational repression by mRNA, inhibition by natural antisense transcripts, etc. Perhaps the RNA intermediate was required in early life to provide a mechanism for regulation of gene expression.

[JackBean]

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Post by JackBean » Tue Sep 30, 2014 8:16 am

What jonmoulton wrote is true (regulation on RNA level), but further there is amplification of the signal (there can be thousands copies of each mRNA, each giving rise to hundreds of protein molecules), also, during replication of DNA the protein synthesis would have to be shut down and there could be other reasons.
But as said, it's always difficult to answer the Why-questions because there is no intelligence creating this stuff on purpose. It's more like the blind watchmaker trying to repair the watch by random changes and "seeing" (as he's blind) what works. It could be that in the RNA world the proteins were translated directly from the RNA (as nowadays) but when DNA started to work as information carrier, there would have to be too big changes in the ribosome and everything so it couldn't be possible but rather the transcription system evolved (as that's pretty similar to replication).

[wildfunguy]

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Post by wildfunguy » Tue Dec 02, 2014 11:23 pm

Even if that system would be more successful, could we have transitioned to it through gradual mutation and selection, or were we stuck with what we got?

[wildfunguy]

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Post by wildfunguy » Wed Dec 03, 2014 12:01 am

Maybe translation enzymes introduce more errors.
Maybe it never evolved because having a mutant ribosome attacking your DNA inevitably kills you.

[chance]

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Post by chance » Wed Sep 09, 2015 5:59 am

Because there is no the Enzyme to directiy translate the DNA into proteins.
http://www.biologicscorp.com/