haha...talk about the customisation rvln...here is another customisation....microcosm????
People are so fussy. We complain about everything. The water's either too hot…or too cold… your legs are either too fat or too thin, you are either too young or too old to be doing that…We are just so hard to satisfy. We spend lifetimes trying to figure ourselves out. But the stuff that we are made of…actually made of – our cells that is, they are quite different.
For one thing, they don't fuss half as much! If they did, we'd end up as biological disasters! You're probably wondering who, what, why when how?…Well, just read on…
Take Ribonucleic Acid – nickname – RNA for example. She's not fussy at all. In fact, RNA is just like one of those crucial people like say...a farmers' wife - someone you almost overlook. But without them, the whole show would flop!
How? For that, we need to dive, just a little bit, into where all the actionis - a bustling city called the human body! Just to understand how the city people the don't starve to death.
Before that, an introduction to some big-shot city folks in this thriller. A group called antibodies - the soldiers who fight diseases (the police maybe), another called hormones – who regulate growth (the city's development authorities?!) and enzymes - our body's biochemical catalysts. These groups of people keep our body clocks (the city remember?) ticking on time. All these key characters are made of protein – our cells' bread and butter. And guess who helps produce their daily bread? Well the farmer's wife RNA of course!
Consider one cell to be a small housing colony. It has the necessary furniture like mitochondria – the cell's powerhouse (a generator) and ribosomes – the workrooms (or bakery) where protein is built from a set of genetic instructions. The nucleus is the fancy town area, where the bakery (ribosomes) are. This is where Deoxyribonucleic Acid – nickname DNA, plays the lead role of concocting our individuality through genes. He is the smooth talking politician.
Although our fussy leading actor (DNA) promises that no one in the city will go hungry...the fact is he's too much of a coward to brave the real perils of the suburban and rural areas. Of course he gets someone to do his dirty work... Poor old RNA!
So RNArestructures herself to become an exact stunt double of DNA. She won't gain access into the modernised world outside the nucleus town if she doesn't look the part right? Besides, how else will the secret recipe of genetic inforamation that DNA has first go to the bakery, get made into bread and then be distributed to the folks in the suburbs as well?
RNA can move past the security-checks of the membranous walls of the living room (nucleus) and into the rest of the house to the bakery ('work rooms,'). The multi-talented RNA transforms into DNA's double through a process called transcription.
How does she do this? She wears a 'nucleotide' cap. She also carries a special enzyme to prolong her life enough to complete her mission, especially with all the hazards of the hostile environment outside the well developed town area. Some of the roads to the bakeries are still under construction for God;s sake! She also sheds her extra baggage – 'non-coding sequences', through a process called 'splicing'. Now she has matured, transformed even, into messenger RNA (mRNA).
The nucleus town has a double wall. The only door to the surrounding wild world of cytoplasm the under-developed suburbs, is through a heavily guarded security gate called the nuclear pore complex (NPC). So, mRNA gets a protein nametag, her gate pass to the suburban cytoplasm.
This is the final step to the final goal – proteins. A specialized protein molecule called transfer RNA (tRNA) plays the role of translator. RNA might be able to disguise herslef like the pretty-talking politician to become the messenger witht he secret codes (mRNA), but she can't match his gaft for the gab. She doesn't even know the language actually! So, she takes the help of the translator -tRNA, who matches or guides mRNA to the right corresponding protein which needs to be manufactured. The cell's protein-making factory - the ribosomes bakery now take this delicious mission to a grand finale. Mr tRNA then decodes mRNA and translates her secret town code into an understandable code - a protein code. Proteins are now built based upon this secret coded recipe that RNA hand-delivered (with a little translator guidance) to the manufacturers of the city's bakers. No one will go hungry!
Now that the show is over, the growling tummies have been filled to satsifaction... and the applause has finally died down. Poltician DNA takes her final bow and waves to the crowd. So much like real life. The farmer put his blood and sweat into itand the poltician got all the roses.
