Does our body naturally produce and use mRNA to communicate between cells or is mRNA only a lab created tool?
In: Biology
Your body creates mRNA while copying DNA, among other things. It is not just a lab creation.
mRNA is messenger RNA. It is used in each cell, not between cells.
The DNA always stays in the nucleus of the cell. Genes and other small segments of the DNA are copied in the nucleus, making mRNA. The mRNA travels out of the nucleus into the cytoplasm of the cell, where it is altered (if needed). Then ribosomes use it as a blueprint to chain together amino acids, which eventually become proteins.
DNA is all the information of all of our genes. Most of our cells carry all our DNA, with red blood cells being a notable exception with no DNA in mature cells. Our cells aren’t all using all that information, and they certainly don’t need all of it at once. Plus all the DNA is in the nucleus and never leaves, while all protein is made by ribosomes outside the nucleus.
To get protein instructions from nucleus to ribosomes, DNA is “transcribes” and a copy is made of a particular section. That copy is mRNA and gets transported out of the nucleus to where it can be read or “translated” by ribosomes into DNA. The m stands for “messenger” because the mRNA molecules are there messenger that deliver DNA instructions to ribosomes that make proteins.
Bacteria don’t have a nucleus, but they still don’t make protein straight from DNA and also make mRNA.
DNA is like a master blueprint on how to build a house, containing all the instructions on how to build every single part of the house. It is kept in a vault (like the nucleus) and never leaves this vault (nucleus).
In order to use the blueprint, copies have to be made inside the vault and transported out. Only small parts of the blueprint are copied. These copies would be like mRNA. They only copy parts of the blueprint, like how to build a sink or closet or shelf (different proteins).
Once the copy (mRNA) is transported out of the vault (nucleus), the builders (ribosomes) assemble and build the part (protein) from the copy.
The copies (mRNA) can’t alter the DNA because the copying process is one way and the instructions are written slightly differently on the blueprint and copies, like they use different fonts (DNA is made of slightly different materials than mRNA). The copies are also fragile and only last a short time, like they are instructions written on toilet paper instead of the much more durable blueprint in the vault. mRNA also doesn’t persist. The builders (ribosomes) outside the vault (nucleus) can only understand the instructions on the copies. Plus there are no builders in the nucleus.
I could be completely wrong here. I thought they used mRNA to tell a benign bacteria how to produce the spike like protein on its outer shell to mimic the covid virus. And that’s why it triggers our immune response. I didn’t think they were really doing anything with our own cells at all with mRNA
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