| Creation Truth Outreach, Inc. Pamphlet |
| © 2007 Creation Truth Outreach, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This pamphlet may be freely copied provided it is copied in its entirety, its contents are not altered in any manner, and additional or tighter copyright restrictions than these are not imposed on it. Revised May 5, 2008 |
| Appendix A. Tutorial 4. RNA and DNA In real life complicated objects are built from plans. A contractor builds a skyscraper according to blueprints. A software program is compiled according to its source code. Even a cook in a fast- food chain restaurant needs to make a hamburger according to a very specific recipe. Cells do not just happen. They are also built according to a specification. That specification is stored in information blocks. The information blocks in turn are composed of long chains of either RNA or DNA nucleotides. DNA nucleotides do not appear spontaneously in nature, but are about 100 times as stable as RNA In other words, spontaneous mutations occur about 100 times as frequently in RNA as in DNA. Living cells form individual DNA nucleotides from RNA nucleotides by removing a single oxygen from a specific location of a sugar molecule contained in the nucleotide. A nucleotide consists of three components: a base molecule, a sugar molecule, and some phosphate molecules. Four different bases are available. In RNA they are given the names adenine, cytosine, guanine, and uracil. In DNA thymine is substituted for uracil. For us here, all we need to know is that four kinds of nucleotide bases are available in both RNA strings and DNA strings. The sequence of nucleotide bases in a DNA string or RNA string represents information. Just as a string of bits stored in a computer’s disk drive can represent anything from a picture to a symphony to a love letter to a mathematical program, strings of nucleotide bases represent the information to build and operate all of the different tissues and organs of a living organism. The stability of DNA is important for organisms that have already formed. Bulk information is stored in DNA. However, in an origin-of-life scenario, RNA is more important because it is easier to form than DNA and also can function as an enzyme, which DNA cannot do. The actual structure of an RNA nucleotide is simple to visualize but difficult to form by chance process. A base is connected to a particular kind of sugar called Ribose. Ribose in turn is connected to one, two, or three phosphate molecules strung together. This is a far more complicated structure than an amino acid and joining a string of RNA nucleotides to form RNA is far more complicated than joining a string of amino acids to form an enzyme. However, many scientists believe that life started with RNA instead of enzymes for reasons we shall discuss in the main text. |