The Central Dogma of genetics--that is, how the information needed to construct all the proteins for cells--is that DNA is transcribed into RNA, which is translated to proteins. If those words sound like words used in reading a foreign language, it is because that is kind of what is happening. DNA is made up of four types of nitrogenous bases: adenine, guanine, thymine, and cytosine. They are strung in a chain, that makes up DNA. After the DNA is "unzipped" so that it is a single strand instead of a double strand, the DNA is copied by a strand of RNA; only one type of base will attach to the corresponding DNA base. Cytosine attaches to guanine, and adenine, instead of attaching to thymine like it would in a complimentary DNA strand, is instead attached to uracil in RNA. The RNA bases are then "read" in sets of three; each set of three codes for a specific amino acid. The amino acid sequence that results is the specific type of protein coded for by the original strand of DNA.
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