Talk:Sense (molecular biology)

Sense/Antisense and Plus/Minus

Both strands of the DNA helix serve as templates for RNA transcription of genes. Hence, one of the two strands is (arbitrarily) the plus/forward strand and the other one is the minus/reverse strand. Depending on the direction of the promoter, the plus strand may be the sense or antisense strand for a particular gene and the minus strand may be the antisense or sense strand for another gene. Mixing these two nomenclatures is highly misleading. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 153.96.86.132 (talk) 10:09, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

there is a mistake in the second sentence and Proposal to merge

The second sentence describes the nonsense strand as the strand by which an mRNA is produced. this is incorrect, as it should instead be the sense strand that encodes for a protein. I propose to merge Negative-sense RNA and Positive-sense RNA into this article. As they now stand, they cannot move beyond being stubs, and both senses could be adequately covered in this single article. I intended to merge them now, but its late and I have prior commitments. If anyone can merge them before I eventually get to it, go ahead! --Iamunknown 05:50, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

i agree with the proposal for merging and the rationale for doing so...is there a way to make sure that those search terms (pos sense RNA; neg sense RNA) point to the new entry? --Lesotho 18:16, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes. I did not really know how to merge until this weekend, when I merged a couple of pages. I found and read Wikipedia:Merging and moving pages, and the process is:

1. Open the source and destination pages in two separate windows/tabs.
2. Cut and paste the non-redundant content from the source page into the destination page.
3. Add #REDIRECT [[PAGENAME]] {{R from merge}} to the source page.
4. ...
5. Preview and edit the destination page until it looks good and consistent.
6. Save both, and note the merger (including the page names) in the edit summaries.
7. Check "What links here" on the source page for double-redirects.
   • Double-redirects will fail to link, and must be renamed to redirect to the current page name.

Step #3 is critical. When we cut the info out of Positive-sense RNA and Negative-sense RNA to paste into this page (if there is any non-redundant content; I haven't thoroughly checked), we leave

#REDIRECT [[Sense (molecular biology)]] {{R from merge}}

on the page and save (with an appropriate edit summary). I'll try it later tonight, unless you wanna get it done before me :D in which case, go on right ahead! (If you do, make sure to redirect the talk pages to this talk page as well.) --Iamunknown 19:07, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

• Support for the merge. I created this article to prevent small stubby ones like the proposed mergee's having to exist. -- Serephine ♠ talk - 17:19, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
• Support for the merge. It just makes sense for this to merge. -- mal ♠ talk - 17:19, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Merge has been done. WAS 4.250 14:29, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Plus vs. sense

In my experience "plus" and "minus" have been used to refer to the orientation of a sequence relative to genomic assembly, while "sense" and "antisense" are relative to an individual gene's transcription direction. I think this page needs to be corrected. Madeleine ✉ ✍ 18:39, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

You're so wrong! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 155.198.149.146 (talk) 10:19, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

---

BIG MISTAKE HERE:

""DNA normally has two strands, i.e., the sense strand and the antisense strand. In double-stranded DNA, only one strand codes for the RNA that is translated into protein. This DNA strand is referred to as the antisense strand. The strand that does not code for RNA is called the sense strand. Another way of defining antisense DNA is that it is the strand of DNA that carries the information necessary to make proteins by binding to a corresponding messenger RNA. Although these strands are exact mirror images of one another, only the antisense strand contains the information for making proteins. The sense strand does not (not true for overlapping genes).

5'CGCTATAGCGTTT 3' DNA template (coding) strand (antisense strand)

3'GCGATATCGCAAA 5' DNA nontemplate (non coding) strand (sense strand)

5'GCGAUAUCGCAAA 3' Sense RNA transcript (mRNA)

3'CGCUAUAGCGUUU 5' Antisense RNA""

This is wrong. The coding strand is also called sense strand when this DNA segment encodes for a protein. The template strand is the antisense strand and for this reason is used as a template.

You have to Know that, in general, sense strand, coding strand and positive strand can be used to depict the same concept. A DNA segment that goes from 5' to 3' where we can find an ORF.

Example.

DNA 5' ATCGAAAAAA 3' Sense strand, coding strand, positive strand, upper strand 3' TAGCTTTTTT 5' Antisense, noncoding, nonsense, negative, lower strand, template

RNA pol uses antisense or lower strand as a template to add complementary nucleotides.

5' AUCGAAAAAAAAA..........3' Is the coding strand, positive strand 3' TAGCTTTTTTTTT..........5' Acts as a template strand, nonsense, antisense, negative..etc.

Please fix it because is one of the most and fundamental concepts in molecular biology —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.83.140.65 (talk) 13:27, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

People kept editing it back and forth and I finally realized why. I think textbook convention is to write the 5'-->3' antisense DNA strand on top and the complementary 3'<--5' sense DNA strand on the bottom, but if you're a researcher, you care about the sense strand and that's what you use in documents and programs. Since translation from mRNA is 5'->3', it makes sense to write the (basically same sequence) sense DNA strand in the 5'->3' direction as well. Ultimately, it does not matter which strand is on top or bottom. Only two things matter: (1) which strand has the sequence for the amino acid codons and (2) the inherent direction of the bases (the 5' end and the 3' end). I made a note about it. Please clarify anything that could confuse people, but do not delete the note without replacing it with something better. I agree with anonymous 62.83.140.65, this is a fundamental concept. We need to explain it right. --Flecha2 (talk) 22:28, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

   Hi again Flecha. The sense strand has the same sequene that the mRNA, this is the reason because it is called "sense" or coding, because encodes an ORF. To sintetize the mRNA you need to read another sequence that is complementary to your coding strand, this complementary sequence that transcriptional machinery uses as a template doesn't encodes an ORF (we can assume this) and for this reason is also the so-called non-sense strand, antisense strand or noncoding. I think it is quite clear and that all this set of concepts and terms are relatively intuitive once the people understand a little bit the rules of how the genetic information flows from DNA to protein.

Sorry for my english, I am from Spain

Cheers! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.83.140.65 (talk) 01:21, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

This article readily causes confusion about the directions of the different DNA and RNA sequences because it has the DNA sequences oriented in the reverse direction and in the reverse order to what you see in most other places. Typically, you see the sense strand on top and given in 5' to 3' order from left to right (see for instance this excellent page from San Diego State University ). Here, it is given below the antisense strand with the 5' to 3' order from right to left. While technically correct, the unusual presentation used in this article is bound to confuse beginners in the field (see comment above starting "Big mistake here"). Several other Wikipedia entries use the standard orientation and presentation order, conflicting with this entry. This includes the entry on RNA splicing, as well as the entry on Transcription (genetics). Both of these articles use the textbook convention of writing the 5' to 3' sense DNA sequence on top, with the 5' end being to the left.

It would be nice to see this article corrected to use the standard representation as soon as possible as people might often go to Wikipedia for this fundamental topic in molecular biology.

FredrikRonquist (talk) 11:40, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

References

Relationship to directionality?

Sense sounds very similar to directionality (molecular biology). Please explain the differences in the article. -Pgan002 (talk) 13:52, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

In a nutshell, "directionality" has meaning for strand of DNA or RNA, whereas "sense" usually describes the relationship between a strand of DNA or RNA and a coding sequence. This article needs a lot of work, but I'm afraid I don't have time right now. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 14:06, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

Which is the coding strand?

"Sometimes the phrase coding strand is encountered" Does this statement refer to the sense or the antisense strand? It is not clear in the article.72.93.188.84 (talk) 22:10, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

The Schematic showing how antisense DNA strands can interfere with protein translation.

In the schematic the mRNA is showing in the cell nucleus. For me, there is a previous RNA made in the cell nucleus and then outside it is converted into the mRAN. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.65.6.19 (talk) 10:45, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

merge of Sense strand

Since someone put a merge template on Sense strand I would like to argue about it here. I like to put in links for terms like Sense strand or antisense strand and linking to Sense (molecular biology) just slows down people who want to know what the term means. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 09:19, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Start codon is wrong

Translation starts from 5' to 3' (the start codon is 5'-AUG-3'). In the table the RNA sense is wrong because it has its start codon at the 3' end and it should be at the 5' end. I mean the mRNA can't end in GUA-3' because the 5' end connects with the ribosome to initiate the traslation (not the 3' end). It could be 3'-...XXX-XXX-GUA-5' or also 5'-AUG-XXX-XXX...-3' but never 5'-...XXX-XXX-GUA-3'.--Miguelferig (talk) 18:28, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

You are correct. Putting a start codon at the end of a sequence like that is misleading anyway, as real mRNA molecules begin with a 5'-UTR, not a start codon. I've removed the sequence and references to it. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 11:27, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

Sense/Antisense mRNA were reversed in the table

I've fixed it. The Sense mRNA should be the one complementary to the antisense (template) DNA and "identical" to the sense/coding DNA. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 5.12.239.4 (talk) 00:06, 22 April 2017 (UTC)