DefinitionThis section has been translated automatically.
Downstream is the direction in a nucleic acid molecule that points into the 3' end of the nucleic acid molecule.
General informationThis section has been translated automatically.
The terms "downstream" and "upstream" are used in molecular biology and genetics to refer to the transcriptional direction and position of nucleotide sequences surrounding a coding region.
Each DNA or RNA strand has a 5′- and 3′-end that relates to specific carbon atoms of (deoxy)ribose. Here, it was determined that upstream or downstream refers to the 5′→3′ direction of DNA transcription. Here, the transcription direction toward the 3′-end is referred to as downstream.
The opposite direction to the 5′-end is referred to as upstream. In double-stranded DNA, this is always based on the codogenic strand (template strand) of the gene in question. Due to the mirror-image structure of DNA, upstream and downstream are reversed in the case of the non-matrix strand - viewed from the matrix strand.
