Overview Deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA, is the genetic material responsible for passing traits from generation to generation in all organisms and most ...

Overview The central dogma of biology states that information encoded in the DNA is transferred to messenger RNA (mRNA), which then directs the synthesis ...

Prokaryotes are small unicellular organisms that include the domains—Archaea and Bacteria. Bacteria include many common organisms, such as ...

One of the distinguishing features of eukaryotic cells is that they contain membrane-bound organelles, such as the nucleus and mitochondria, that carry ...

The “tree of life” describes the evolution of life and the evolutionary relationships between organisms. The root of the tree is the common ...

Overview Mutations are changes in the sequence of DNA. These changes can occur spontaneously or they can be induced by exposure to environmental factors. ...

The genomes of eukaryotes are punctuated by long stretches of sequence which do not code for proteins or RNAs. Although some of these regions do contain ...

While every living organism has a genome of some kind (be it RNA, or DNA), there is considerable variation in the sizes of these blueprints. One major ...

Gene families consist of groups of genes proposed to have originated from a common ancestor. Typically these arise through events in which a gene or genes ...

Genetic transfer occurs when genetic information is passed from one organism to another. It occurs via two mechanisms: vertical gene transfer and ...