. how do MRNA vaccines work?

 

MRNA is a intercellular courier.  It receives precise plans from the nucleus, from a stretch of DNA called a gene.  It transports the blueprints to a factory in the cytoplasm, a factory called a ribosome.  The factory uses the plan to construct a chain of amino acids that fold and become a protein.  

DNA resides in the nucleus and is a long tortuous, unreadable arrangement of pairs of 4 different proteins called nucleotides. Close to 99% of our DNA functions as a guide, a blueprint, a set of instructions.  The fertilized cell uses it to form a new being.  After the little bugger is fully formed most of the DNA becomes dormant.  Some scientists call it junk DNA.

 Think-- an aircraft company makes a huge complicated airplane.  After the plane is formed and delivered the aircraft company has done its job. 

But for the plane to function it needs fuel.   Someone has to fly it, and we need to control its motors landing gears etc.  The life, death, and day to day functions of the cells in our body are controlled by 20,000 varied and complex proteins.   

The stretches of DNA called genes occupy a little more than 1 percent of the nuclear DNA. --only 1 percent of the 3 billion pairs of 4 nucleotides.  These genes are scattered in very specific locations in the DNA in every cell.  When they are active they use MRNA to send a message to the ribosomes.   Messenger RNA is single strand chain of 4 nucleotides that are a bit different than the nucleotides that make up DNA.  It travels to a gene and makes an RNA copy of the gene.  Then it goes to the ribosome, and tells it to produce a specified sequence of amino acids.   Once produced the amino acids fold, become an active protein, and perform a functions.    

Viruses are chains of DNA or RNA that have a protein coating.  Before a virus invades a cell, a portion of their protein coat attaches to the cell membrane.  

 Creatures protect themselves from viral diseases by recognizing the protein on the outside of a virus and realizing it is foreign.  Their immune cells develop antibodies that attach to the virus and special cells demolish the tagged virus.       

The MRNA in the newer vaccines contain the instructions for the stretch of protein that a specific virus uses to attach to a cell.  Once injected the MRNA gets into the cell cytoplasm and instructs ribosomes to make that specific stretch of that alien protein.  When the protein floats out of the cell, the body recognizes it, realizes it doesn’t belong, and immune cells make antibodies to it.  Later, when the harmful virus attacks, the immune system, hopefully, is ready to destroy the virus.

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