Molecular biology studies the molecular mechanisms of life, including the structure of biological molecules. It emerged in the 1960s with the discovery of DNA and encompasses biochemistry and genetics. The “central dogma” states that genes are transcribed into RNA and translated into proteins, but there are exceptions. Expression cloning is a basic area of investigation that helps us understand the role of genes in the body. The field is vast and constantly evolving.
Molecular biology is a field of biology that examines the molecular mechanism of life. The camp was founded in the early 1930s, although the phrase wasn’t used until 1938 and the camp didn’t really take off until the late 1950s and early 1960s. Since then, there has been tremendous progress in the field. The field began with X-ray crystallography of various important biological molecules. Now, crystallography databases store the molecular structure of tens of thousands of these molecules. Understanding these proteins helps us understand how the body works and how to fix it when it breaks down.
Truly modern molecular biology emerged with the discovery of the structure of DNA in the 1960s and the concomitant advances in biochemistry and genetics. Molecular biology is one of the three primary biological sciences on a molecular scale, the others being biochemistry and genetics. There is no clear division between the three, but they have broad domains.
In general, biochemistry looks at the function of proteins within the body, genetics looks at how genes are inherited and propagated, and molecular biology looks at the process of gene replication, transcription, and translation. Molecular biology has some superficial similarities to computer science, because genes can be viewed as discrete code, although the proteins they code for and their subsequent interactions can be highly nonlinear.
The most important idea in molecular biology is the so-called “central dogma” of molecular biology, which states that the flow of information in organisms follows a one-way street: genes are transcribed into RNA and RNA is translated into proteins . While generally correct, the “central dogma” is not as absolute or certain as its name suggests. In some cases, the flow of information can reverse, as the protein environment can influence which genes are transcribed into RNA and which RNA is translated into proteins. The big picture, however, holds, as if proteins had too much influence on the genes that code for them, the body would be in shambles.
One of the most basic areas of investigation in molecular biology is the use of expression cloning to see which proteins are created from which genes. Expression cloning involves cloning a segment of DNA that codes for a protein of interest, attaching the DNA to a plasmid vector, then introducing the vector into another plant or animal. How the transferred DNA is expressed provides valuable information about its role in the body. This allows us to learn what genes do. Without this knowledge, much of genetics, like our knowledge of the human genome, would be useless.
There are many other lines of inquiry in molecular biology. The field is incredibly vast. The information presented above, however, serves as an introduction.
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