Overview of Nucleic Acids, Genomes, Cell Theory, and the Central Dogma of Molecular Biology

11 months ago

In this video I go over a brief overview of mainstream molecular biology, specifically nucleic acids, genomes, Cell Theory, and the Central Dogma of Molecular Biology. Nucleic acids, namely DNA and RNA, are essential chemical compounds found in all of life. Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) stores the genetic instructions for development of all known living organisms and many "viruses". Ribonucleic acid (RNA) plays roles in coding and expression of "genes", which are specific sequences of DNA that get transcribed into functional RNA, such as in the translation of RNA into proteins. The flow of genetic information between DNA and RNA, and RNA to protein (but not from protein to RNA) is summarized in the Central Dogma of Molecular Biology.

I also present the 3 tenets or beliefs of Cell Theory, which view living organisms as comprising of at least one cell, are the basic structure in living organism, and cells arise from previous cells. Cell Theory is widely accepted by mainstream biologists, but recently there is debate whether to includes entities such as "viruses" as living organisms since they are not comprised of cells. But rather, "viruses" are typically just enclosed particles with DNA or RNA inside.

This brief overview serves as background for the technical terms in my video reviewing the main paper on COVID "virus" isolation.

The timestamps of key parts of the video are listed below:

Nucleic Acids, Base Pairs, DNA, RNA, Genes, Genomes, Chromosomes: 0:00
Ribonucleic Acid (RNA) vs Deoxyribonucleic Acid (DNA): 2:49
Human Cell, Cell Division, Nuclear and Mitochondrial Genomes, Sex Chromosomes: 3:54
DNA Sequence of a "Virus" Genome, Human vs COVID "Virus" Genomes: 5:09
Cell Theory, "Viruses" vs Living Organisms: 6:17
Central Dogma of Molecular Biology, Polymerase, Enzymes, Polymers, Proteins: 7:20
Sense RNA, RNA to Protein Translation: 9:03

This video is taken from my earlier video listed below: