What is RNA

 Structure of RNA

RNA (ribonucleic acid) is a molecule found in cells that plays an important role in many biological processes. It acts as both an information carrier and as an enzyme, which can modify or change the structure of molecules around it. RNA contains four nucleotide bases: adenine, guanine, cytosine and uracil. RNA has several major functions within cells including regulating protein production; carrying messages from DNA to proteins; aiding in gene expression; being involved in protein translation and helping with viral replication. Additionally, RNA serves other roles such as performing enzymatic activities like reverse transcription and ribozymes that catalyze reactions involving base-pairing between strands of complementary mRNA molecules.

Functions of RNA

RNA plays an essential role in many different biological processes. Its primary functions include the following: 

1. It is the main component of ribosomes, which are structures within cells that catalyze protein synthesis from messenger RNA (mRNA). 

2. It helps to direct transcription processes during DNA replication and regulate gene expression levels at certain times during cell development or division.

 3. Transfer RNAs move amino acids around a cell to synthesize proteins as well as help break them down for degradation into other molecules such as glucose or glycogen when needed by the cell’s metabolism needs access to energy sources for survival . 

4. Ribozymes are specific types of RNA enzymes that can cleave single-stranded mRNA substrates and thus control its fate whether it will be translated into a functional protein or not., depending on their programmed rules, either defining initiation/termination codons , preventing preterm translation due to regulatory sequences inside coding sequence regions etc... 

5 In addition, small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) have been identified in recent years with roles in posttranscriptional regulation events like alternative splicing or targeting complementary mRNAs for non productive pathways via endonucleolysis