Why is uracil used in RNA rather than thymine?

[Ganesh Ujwal]

What is the advantage gained by the substitution of thymine with uracil? I have read previously that it is due to thymine being "better protected" and therefore more suited to the storage role of DNA, which seems fine in theory, but why does the addition of a simple methyl group make the base more well protected?

[dpryan]

You should really be asking questions like this in a general biology group, such as the biology stack exchange.

[Ganesh Ujwal]

if you know the answer please answer my question?
my questions are clear.

[GenoMax]

You could have taken a moment to do a search and get the answer for the question you asked: http://biology.stackexchange.com/que...r-than-thymine

[Ganesh Ujwal]

so i never get answer from this site for this question?

[Brian Bushnell]

From the FAQ:

While the site is intended to be oriented toward life sciences and next generation sequencing, any scientific topic related to genomics is open for discussion.

There's nothing wrong with your question. However, GenoMax did point you to an answer. Questions related to sequencing and processing tend to get answered here faster than theoretical biology questions, though.

[Ganesh Ujwal]

so, where should i post this question in seqanswers.com to get answers ?

[Brian Bushnell]

Here or General are the best places. Like I said, there's nothing wrong with the question, but bioinformatics threads tend to generate more responses.

[Ganesh Ujwal]

thanks for moving my thread to General.

[Brian Bushnell]

OK, just remember that posting a thread multiple times violates the forum rules, so I deleted it and moved this one over there.

[Ganesh Ujwal]

@Brain Bushnell if you know the answer to this question, please post.

[Brian Bushnell]

I would be happy to, but I'm not a biologist, I'm a programmer; besides, the thread GenoMax found seems to have several good answers in it.

[FWOS]

Hi Ganesh,

I think it's as simple as this:

RNA loves U

[dpryan]

No, it's not that RNA loves U, since RNA had U before there was DNA. Rather, it's that there are benefits to DNA using T (as outlined in Genomax's link).

[Ganesh Ujwal]

Hi Ganesh,

I think it's as simple as this:

RNA loves U

Mod, this type of replies are right or wrong?