Question

If transcription occurred from left to right, which strand is the template strand? if transcription occurred from left to right, which strand is the template strand? 5' - tatgcagcacatt - 3' 5' - atacgtcgtgtaa - 3' 3' - atacgtcgtgtaa - 5' 3' - tatgcagcacatt - 5'

Answer 1

If transcription occurred from left to right the template strand would be
3'- ATACGTCGTGTAA- 5'.
RNA polymerase moves along the template strand in the 3' to 5' direction, synthesizing an RNA molecule from 5' to 3'. If the RNA polymerase is moving from left to right, the strand that is oriented from 3' to 5' left to right is the bottom strand. This is the template strand. The top strand is called the coding strand (or sometimes the non-template) strand. The template strand is complementary to the mRNA sequence; the coding strand is the same sequence with uracil (U) instead of thymine (T).