How does DNA serve as a blueprint for cells?

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If I understand correctly, DNA determines which proteins are replicated within a cell, and therefore determine it’s function. So, it’s not as though DNA “knows” every cell in your body and builds out from a blueprint, rather your cells use DNA as instructions for how to respond to chemical stimuli.

This makes sense when talking on a small scale, like something in the environment triggering production of a specific enzyme. But what determines the creation and shape of complex organs or structures like eyes or fingers? What do those “instructions” look like? (“Keep building finger cells until blood circulation is low, then we have to start building fingernails”)?

In: Biology

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Anonymous 0 Comments

The nucleotides in DNA thymine, cytosine, guanine and adenine are grouped into batches of three which act like a byte in a computer program for assembling a protein, each of these codons represents a start, an amino acid or a stop instruction resulting in the correct sequence of amino acids being assembled to complete the protein. https://youtu.be/DfaPwWCvN5s

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