Central Dogma Zen - Parts 2 and 3
(To the tune of "Those Were the Days")
Copyright 2008 Kevin Ahern

An organism's cellular construction
With blueprints for the things they have to do
Requires converting DNA instructions
To ribopolymers, oh yes it's true

Because they've been bestowed
With a genetic code
The RNAs provide the cell with means
To link amino A's
In most directed ways
Inside the protein-making cell machines

If "coli" cells don't have galactosidase
And lactose should appear inside its food
The lac repressor leaves the operator
'Cause otherwise metabolism's screwed

Polymerase unwinds
The DNAs it binds
Adjacent to the start site where it docks
Unravels A's and T's
With such amazing ease
At the promoter's little TATA box

The process moves along without much trouble
While making RNA inside the cell
It all occurs inside transcription bubbles
Where bases get linked anti-parallel

mRNA then roams
To find some ribosomes
Subunits large and small bind near the end
The A-U-G's in place
Inside the P site space
Initiation you can comprehend

The mechanism shifts to elongation
Proceeding by three bases at a stretch
A GTP's required for translocation
Advancing 5 to 3 the whole complex

The process moves anon
Until a stop codon
Arrives and causes movement to suspend
Translation has to cease
A peptide gets released
And we have reached the central dogma's end.

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