gene expression definition
Diagram showing at which stages in the DNA-mRNA-protein pathway expression can be controlled. Gene expression is the process by which the heritable information in a gene, the sequence of DNA base pairs, is made into a functional gene product, such as protein or RNA. The basic idea is that DNA is transcribed into RNA, which is then translated into proteins. Proteins make many of the structures and all the enzymes in a cell or organism. Several steps in the gene expression process may be modulated (tuned).