Central dogma of molecular biology

The central dogma of molecular biology was first enunciated by Francis Crick in 1958^[1]and re-stated in a Nature paper published in 1970:^[2]

The central dogma of molecular biology deals with the detailed residue-by-residue transfer of sequential information. It states that information cannot be transferred back from protein to either protein or nucleic acid.

In other words, 'once information gets into protein, it can't flow back to nucleic acid.'

The dogma is a framework for understanding the transfer of sequence information between sequential information-carrying biopolymers, in the most common or general case, in livingorganisms. There are 3 major classes of such biopolymers: DNA and RNA (both nucleic acids), and protein. There are 3×3 = 9 conceivable direct transfers of information that can occur between these. The dogma classes these into 3 groups of 3: 3 general transfers (believed to occur normally in most cells), 3 special transfers (known to occur, but only under specific conditions in case of some viruses or in a laboratory), and 3 unknown transfers (believed to never occur). The general transfers describe the normal flow of biological information: DNA can be copied to DNA (DNA replication), DNA information can be copied into mRNA, (transcription), and proteins can be synthesized using the information in mRNA as a template (translation).^[2]