Kaplan Nursing Entrance Practice Exam 2025 – 400 Free Practice Questions to Pass the Exam

The process that involves the production of RNA from DNA is transcription. During transcription, a specific segment of DNA is used as a template to synthesize RNA, particularly messenger RNA (mRNA). This process occurs in the nucleus of the cell, where the DNA is located.

Transcription begins when the enzyme RNA polymerase binds to the DNA at a specific region called the promoter. The DNA strands unwind, and RNA polymerase moves along the template strand, synthesizing a complementary RNA strand by adding ribonucleotides in accordance with the base pairing rules (adenine pairs with uracil in RNA, and cytosine pairs with guanine).

This process is critical for gene expression, as mRNA serves as a blueprint for protein synthesis during translation. While translation, replication, and translocation are important biological processes, they pertain to different aspects of molecular biology, such as synthesizing proteins, copying DNA, and moving molecules within cells, respectively.