Making DNA
Say we are interested in the gene for insulin. Sure, we could take it straight from people, but remember humans are eukaryotes and eukaryotes have non-coding sequences within their genes called introns. The mRNA following splicing, on the other hand, has no introns! How can we make DNA from mRNA?
Take this arbitrary bit of mRNA: UCCAUGCCAUUUGGG
If we had an enzyme which could reverse the transcription back into DNA, this time intron-free, that would be great. We do – it’s called reverse transcriptase and it produces DNA. This special case of DNA is called complementary DNA – cDNA.
cDNA via reverse transcriptase: AGGTACGGTAAACCC (remember that DNA unlike mRNA is double-stranded…