RNA is a polymer made of nucleotides composed of a ribose sugar, phosphate, and one of four nitrogenous bases. It plays essential roles in coding, decoding, regulating, and expressing genes. There are three main types of RNA: ribosomal RNA (rRNA), transfer RNA (tRNA), and messenger RNA (mRNA). rRNA makes up 85% of total cellular RNA and forms the ribosome. tRNA transfers amino acids to the ribosome during protein synthesis according to mRNA codons. mRNA carries coding sequences from DNA to be translated into proteins.

1. STRUCTURE AND
FUNCTION OF
RNA
Ankita Behera
M.Sc Microbiology
St. George College of Management & Science
Bengaluru North University

2. ◦RNA or Ribonucleic acid is a polymer of
nucleotides which is made up of i)ribose
sugar ii)phosphate iii)a bases such as
Adenine, Guanine , Cytosine and Uracil.
◦It is a polymer molecular essential in various
biological roles in coding , decoding ,
regulation and expression of genes.

4. Like DNA , RNA is a long polymer
consisting of nucleotides:-
◦ RNA is a single stranded helix.
◦ The strand has a 5’ end (phosphate group) and a 3’ end (hydroxyl
group).
◦ It is composed of ribonucleotides .
◦ The ribonucleotides are linked together by 3’-> 5’ phosphodiester
bonds.
◦ The nitrogenous bases that compose the ribonucleotides include
Adenine , Cytosine ,Uracil and Guanine.
◦ Thus, the difference in the structure of RNA from that of DNA
include: Adenine (A) ,Guanine(G) , Uracil (U) and Cytosine( C).So
, thymine in DNA is replaced by Uracil in RNA .

6. RNA secondary structure
◦ Most RNA molecules are single stranded but an RNA
molecule may contain regions which can form
complementary base pairing where the RNA strand loops
back on itself.
◦ If so , the RNA will have some double stranded regions.
◦ Ribosomal RNAs (rRNAs) and Transfer RNAs (tRNA) exhibit
substantial secondary structure as do some messenger
RNAs(mRNAs).

8. Types of RNA:-
◦ In both prokaryotes and eukaryotes , there are 3 main types
of RNA:-
i)rRNA (ribosomal RNA)
ii)tRNA(transfer RNA)
iii)mRNA (messenger RNA)

9. Transfer RNA (tRNA):-
◦ It delivers amino acids to ribosome and decodes the information
of mRNA .each nucleotide triplet codon on mRNA represents an
amino acids .
◦ It plays the roles of an adaptor and matches each codon to its
particular amino acids in the cytoplasmic pool.
◦ It has 2 properties :-
i) Its trinucleotide sequence is called anticodons which is
complementary to codon of mRNA , the codon and anticodon
forms base pairs.
ii) The other is amino acid binding site.

10. ◦There are different kinds of tRNA molecules in a cell.
◦Each tRNA is named after the amino acid it carries .for
example , if tRNA carries amino acid tyrosine it is written as
tRNA Tyr,
◦Sometimes there are more than one tRNA for an amino acid
then it is denoted as tRNA 1 Tyr and tRNA 2 Tyr .
◦ a minimum 32 tRNA are required to translate all 61 codon
◦The tRNA charged with an amino acid is called amino acyl
tRNA.

11. Clover leaf structure of tRNA:-
◦ The primary structure of all tRNA molecules is small ,linear ,
single stranded nucleic acid and ranging in size from 73-93
nucleotide.
◦ The tRNA due to its property having stretches of complementary
base pairs forms secondary structure which is in the form of a
clover leaf .
◦ Several regions of the single stranded molecule from double
stranded stems or arms and single stranded loops due to folding
of various regions of the molecule .
◦ These double stranded stems have complementary base paired
typical tRNA has bases numbering from 1-76 using the stranded
numbering convention where position 1 is the 5’ end and 76 is the
3’ end.

12. Clover leaf structure of tRNA:-

13. Aminio
Acid form
• it has 7 base pairs stem formed by base pairs stem formed by base pairing between 5’and 3’ ends
of tRNA.
• At 3’ end a sequence of 5’-CCA-3’ is added
• This is called CCA arm or amino acid acceptor arm because amino acid binds to this arm during
protein synthesis.
D-arm
• Going from 5’ to 3’ direction or anticlockwise direction next arm is D-arm
• It has a 3 to 4 base pair stem and a loop called D-loop or DHU-loop
• It contains a modified base dihydro uracil .
Anticodon
arm
• It is the arm which lies opposite to the acceptor arm
• It has 5 base pair stem and a loop in which there are 1 adjacent nucleotides called
anticodon which are complementary to codon of mRNA.

14. • It lies an extra arm which consists of 3-21
bases .
• Depending upon the length extra arms are of two
types, small extra arm with 3-5 bases and other a
large arm having 13-21 bases .
An extra arm
• It has modified base pseudouridne ψ
• It has a 5 base pair stem with a loop .
• There are 50 different types of modified bases in
different tRNA but 4 bases are more common .
• One is ribothymidine which contains thymine
which is not found in RNA .
• Other modified bases are pseudouridine ψ ,
dihydrouridine and inosine
T-arm or Tψ C
arm

15. 3-D structure of tRNA:-
◦ X-ray crystallographic analysis of tRNA shows 3-D structure called
tertiary structure .
◦ The molecule is folded and has a 2 helical double stranded branches
one branch consists of acceptor arm and T ψ C arm and the other arm
consists of DHU loop and anticodon arm with loop .
◦ The tRNA molecule is L-shaped and tertiary structure creates two
double helices at right angle to each other .The amino acid binding site
is opposite to the anticodon arm.
◦ tRNA constitutes about 10% of the total cellular RNA.

16. messenger RNA (mRNA)
◦ It is a linear molecular transcribed from one strand of DNA
◦ It carries the base sequence complementary to DNA template strand
◦ The base sequence of mRNA is in the form of triplet codons.
◦ Ribosome translates these triplet codons into amino acid sequence of
polypeptide chain .
◦ LENGTH OF mRNA :-
-length is depends upon the length of polypeptide chain it codes for .
-polypeptide length varies from a chain of a few amino acids to 1000. amino
acid .
For example -600 nucleotides code for apolypeptide having a chain of 200
amino acids .

17. Life span of mRNA:-
◦ In bacteria , mRNA is transcribed and translated in a single cellular compartment
and the two processes are linked as they occur simultaneously .
◦ Transcription begins when enzyme RNA polymerase binds to DNA and the moves
along making a copy of one strand .
◦ As soon as the transcription begins , the ribosomes attach to 5’ end of the mRNA
and start translation while the other end of mRNA is still under synthesis .
◦ This is known as coupled transcription and translation in prokaryotic . After , the
translation of whole of mRNA is completed , the mRNA is then degraded is 5’->3’
direction . An individual mRNA molecule survives only for a minute or less.

18. ◦ In eukaryotes transcription occurs in the nucleus while translation takes
place in cytoplasm .eukaryotic mRNA is stable and survive from a few
minutes to more than a day .
◦ Eukaryotic mRNA constitutes only a small proportion of the total cellular
RNA .it is only about 3% of the total RNA.
◦ Coding region consists of series of codons but the mRNA is longer than
the coding regions.
◦ The coding regions are called “EXONS” and between the coding
regions lie various non-coding called “INTRONS”.

19. Ribosomal RNA (rRNA):-
◦ Most of the RNA of the cell is in the form of ribosomal RNA which
constitutes about 85% of the total RNA.
◦ Ribosomes consists of many types of RNA :-
i)70s ribosomes of prokaryotes in its smaller subunits of 30 s has 16s
rRNA.
ii)The 50s larger subunit consists of 23s and 5s rRNA.
iii)80s ribosome has 18s rRNA in its smaller subunit of 40s.
iv)60s larger subunit has 28s ,5.8s and 5s rRNA.

20. ◦ The rRNA molecules form secondary structure of double stranded stems and single
stranded loops by extensive complementary base pairings.
◦ It helps in protein synthesis because they interact with mRNA and tRNA at each step
of translation or protein synthesis.
◦ The 3’ terminus of rRNA of 16s rRNA interacts with initiation site on mRNA which is
called “SHINE-DALGARNO SEQUENCE” and just before the start codon AUG .
◦ The 23s rRNA plays an active role in peptidyl transferase activity .movement of
tRNA between A and P site on ribosome is aided by 23 s rRNA.
◦ The RNA-protein complexes are called “Ribonucleoproteins”(RNP).

21. ◦RNA play major role as enzymes as
“RIBOZYMES”
◦It has a active sites a binding site for substrate
and a binding site for a Co-factor.
◦They are mainly involved in splicing of introns
present on RNA.

23. Functions of Ribosomal RNA(rRNA):-
◦They bind proteins molecules and give rise to
ribosome.
◦18s rRNA has nucleotides complementary to those of
cap region of mRNA.
◦5s rRNA and surrounding protein complex provide
binding site of tRNA.

24. Functions of transfer RNA (tRNA):-
◦ tRNA is adapter molecule which is meant for transferring
amino acids to ribosomes for synthesis of polypeptides.
◦ They carry specific amino acids at particular points during
polypeptide synthesis as per cidons of mRNA.
◦ They held peptidyl chains over the mRNA.

25. Function of messenger RNA (mRNA):-
◦mRNA carries coded information for translation into
polypeptide formation.
◦It has a cap region for attachment to ribosome.
◦Through reverse transcription it form compact genes
which are used in GENETIC ENGINEERING.

27. Thank you