TXTransplant said:

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Both of those articles need to be read with the proper understanding of how mRNA is made and processed in the human body and the relationship between DNA and RNA.

The genes in DNA encode protein molecules.

In the simplest sense, expressing a gene means manufacturing its corresponding protein, and process has two major steps. In the first step, the information in DNA is transferred to a messenger RNA (mRNA) molecule by way of a process called transcription. During transcription, the DNA of a gene serves as a template for complementary base-pairing, and an enzyme called RNA polymerase II catalyzes the formation of a pre-mRNA molecule, which is then processed to form mature mRNA. The resulting mRNA is a single-stranded copy of the gene, which next must be translated into a protein molecule.

Link to this basic explanation here: https://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/translation-dna-to-mrna-to-protein-393/

You can't make mRNA without DNA. All mRNA is unstable and degrades easily. This is true of the mRNA in your body, as well as the mRNA in the vaccines. Bacterial mRNA has a half-life measured in minutes; mammalian mRNA can have a half-life of a day (see the paragraph under Figure 1 of the second article).

The vaccines only deliver enough mRNA to allow that mRNA to get into your cells and make enough spike protein to trigger an immunoresponse. Once your immune system identifies the cells with the spike protein, they are destroyed.

The mRNA from the vaccine does not stay in your body indefinitely, nor does it replicate.

The mRNA from the vaccine does not modify your DNA to produce more spike protein mRNA. For your body to make more spike protein than what can be made from the mRNA in the vaccine, your DNA would have to be genetically modified.

I know there are posters over on the politics board who like to say this isn't a vaccine, it's "gene therapy". That isn't true.

Gene therapy uses genes to treat disease. There are several approaches including

• Replacing a mutated gene that causes disease with a healthy copy of the gene.
• Inactivating, or "knocking out," a mutated gene that is functioning improperly.
• Introducing a new gene into the body to help fight a disease.

Genes are made up of DNA - anywhere from a few hundred to a few million base pairs, depending on the gene. mRNA is NOT a gene.

Your body is constantly making mRNA and proteins. The mRNA damage being discussed in the second article is damage caused to mRNA caused by specific physiological conditions in the body, such as an excess of O2 in the cells, or the presence of certain chemicals in the body (like those from tobacco smoke) and chemotherapy drugs. Damage to mRNA due to the presence of these compounds occurs over time, not because of a single exposure.

That second article is more concerned with damage to the mRNA that your body makes as part of its normal operation, not any associated with the small amount of mRNA that might be injected as a vaccine.

While I'm no expert on RNA therapeutic technologies, in reading the first article, I think that's what it's really focused on. Remember, mRNA is being developed for more than just one-shot vaccines. Presumably, treating cancer with mRNA would involve more than just one or two shots. It would be a more long-term treatment.

However, it's important to understand that the very definition of a virus is that it hijacks your healthy cells and tells them to make more virus. Eventually, this destroys your healthy cells, killing them, or the virus can alter the DNA in your cells. The cells don't die, but they continue to replicate with the foreign virus DNA. There is evidence than certain viruses can mutate cells and cause them to become cancerous.

This process continues as long as your body is infected with the virus. Eventually, your immune system either kills all of the virus-containing cells, or you succumb to the virus and die. Or, in some cases, you can have an active virus that is dormant some of the time, but eventually does significant damage to the cells that you develop cancer (see the connection between HPV and cancer).

This is why having the covid virus itself is so much more dangerous than the vaccine. The virus will replicate over and over and over again, damaging more and more cells, until it is either killed or kills the host.

The mRNA vaccine injects a fixed amount of mRNA that produces a finite amount of spike protein. Your body attacks and destroys the cells with the spike protein, and any excess mRNA degrades. As I said earlier, this does not occur indefinitely, and there is no short or long-term change to your DNA (which, in turn means there is no long-term damage to your mRNA).

Edited to add: There are also several different types of RNA - mRNA, tRNA, and tRNA are the ones you hear about the most, and these three all participate in protein synthesis.

However, there are other types of RNA that can inhibit gene expression. These are the RNAs that play a role in cancer and other diseases. Since the first article uses the term "RNA", I don't think it is specific to only mRNA (although it does discuss mRNA). In fact, the article talks about using their "toehold switch systems" to alter gene expression, so more than just mRNA has to be involved.

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TXTransplant said:

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Both of those articles need to be read with the proper understanding of how mRNA is made and processed in the human body and the relationship between DNA and RNA.

The genes in DNA encode protein molecules.

In the simplest sense, expressing a gene means manufacturing its corresponding protein, and process has two major steps. In the first step, the information in DNA is transferred to a messenger RNA (mRNA) molecule by way of a process called transcription. During transcription, the DNA of a gene serves as a template for complementary base-pairing, and an enzyme called RNA polymerase II catalyzes the formation of a pre-mRNA molecule, which is then processed to form mature mRNA. The resulting mRNA is a single-stranded copy of the gene, which next must be translated into a protein molecule.

Link to this basic explanation here: https://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/translation-dna-to-mrna-to-protein-393/

You can't make mRNA without DNA. All mRNA is unstable and degrades easily. This is true of the mRNA in your body, as well as the mRNA in the vaccines. Bacterial mRNA has a half-life measured in minutes; mammalian mRNA can have a half-life of a day (see the paragraph under Figure 1 of the second article).

The vaccines only deliver enough mRNA to allow that mRNA to get into your cells and make enough spike protein to trigger an immunoresponse. Once your immune system identifies the cells with the spike protein, they are destroyed.

The mRNA from the vaccine does not stay in your body indefinitely, nor does it replicate.

The mRNA from the vaccine does not modify your DNA to produce more spike protein mRNA. For your body to make more spike protein than what can be made from the mRNA in the vaccine, your DNA would have to be genetically modified.

I know there are posters over on the politics board who like to say this isn't a vaccine, it's "gene therapy". That isn't true.

Gene therapy uses genes to treat disease. There are several approaches including

• Replacing a mutated gene that causes disease with a healthy copy of the gene.
• Inactivating, or "knocking out," a mutated gene that is functioning improperly.
• Introducing a new gene into the body to help fight a disease.

Genes are made up of DNA - anywhere from a few hundred to a few million base pairs, depending on the gene. mRNA is NOT a gene.

Your body is constantly making mRNA and proteins. The mRNA damage being discussed in the second article is damage caused to mRNA caused by specific physiological conditions in the body, such as an excess of O2 in the cells, or the presence of certain chemicals in the body (like those from tobacco smoke) and chemotherapy drugs. Damage to mRNA due to the presence of these compounds occurs over time, not because of a single exposure.

That second article is more concerned with damage to the mRNA that your body makes as part of its normal operation, not any associated with the small amount of mRNA that might be injected as a vaccine.

While I'm no expert on RNA therapeutic technologies, in reading the first article, I think that's what it's really focused on. Remember, mRNA is being developed for more than just one-shot vaccines. Presumably, treating cancer with mRNA would involve more than just one or two shots. It would be a more long-term treatment.

However, it's important to understand that the very definition of a virus is that it hijacks your healthy cells and tells them to make more virus. Eventually, this destroys your healthy cells, killing them, or the virus can alter the DNA in your cells. The cells don't die, but they continue to replicate with the foreign virus DNA. There is evidence than certain viruses can mutate cells and cause them to become cancerous.

This process continues as long as your body is infected with the virus. Eventually, your immune system either kills all of the virus-containing cells, or you succumb to the virus and die. Or, in some cases, you can have an active virus that is dormant some of the time, but eventually does significant damage to the cells that you develop cancer (see the connection between HPV and cancer).

This is why having the covid virus itself is so much more dangerous than the vaccine. The virus will replicate over and over and over again, damaging more and more cells, until it is either killed or kills the host.

The mRNA vaccine injects a fixed amount of mRNA that produces a finite amount of spike protein. Your body attacks and destroys the cells with the spike protein, and any excess mRNA degrades. As I said earlier, this does not occur indefinitely, and there is no short or long-term change to your DNA (which, in turn means there is no long-term damage to your mRNA).

Edited to add: There are also several different types of RNA - mRNA, tRNA, and tRNA are the ones you hear about the most, and these three all participate in protein synthesis.

However, there are other types of RNA that can inhibit gene expression. These are the RNAs that play a role in cancer and other diseases. Since the first article uses the term "RNA", I don't think it is specific to only mRNA (although it does discuss mRNA). In fact, the article talks about using their "toehold switch systems" to alter gene expression, so more than just mRNA has to be involved.

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TXTransplant said:

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Ha! Thanks for the compliment. My students didn't appreciate me that much when I was a prof!

You have a great memory! That post was about a year ago. Maybe more. And yeah, there was one person in my family who was very upset that I was going to my group fitness class and then going to work and sending my son to school. That was back before the vaccine.

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