Biology – Protein synthesis | e-Consult

The strand of a DNA molecule used as a template for transcription is termed the template strand or non-coding strand. The other strand, which is complementary to the mRNA being synthesized, is called the non-template strand or coding strand.

Significance: The template strand provides the sequence of nucleotides that the RNA polymerase uses to synthesize the mRNA molecule. The mRNA sequence is essentially a copy of the coding strand, with uracil (U) replacing thymine (T). The template strand's sequence dictates the order of bases in the newly synthesized mRNA. This ensures accurate genetic information is copied from DNA to RNA. The coding strand has the same sequence as the mRNA (except for U/T), so it can be used to determine the mRNA sequence.