These trigger the degradation of another type of RNA molecule known as messenger RNA (mRNA), "down-regulating" the gene.

BBC: NEWS | Science/Nature | Salvage prospect for 'junk' DNA

Instead, differences in composition between warm-water and cold-water ion channels were the result of a phenomenon called RNA editing, in which special enzymes alter the structure of the RNA messenger, and thus of the final protein.

ECONOMIST: A hitherto-unknown way to evolve

It was a stretch of DNA that could be transcribed by an enzyme called polymerase into a chemically similar molecule known as RNA. The RNA acted as a messenger that was itself translated into protein molecules in sub-cellular factories called ribosomes.

ECONOMIST: Genomics has not yet delivered the drugs, but it will

The experimental drugs latch on to the sense strand of RNA, a messenger form of DNA, thereby blocking the RNA from producing proteins that cause disease.

FORBES: Antisense and Sensibility

Antisense instead binds to the RNA messenger molecules that ferry genetic information from the DNA to the cell.

FORBES: Magazine Article

Instructions are transcribed from the sense strand onto a third strand, called messenger RNA, which becomes a template for making proteins.

FORBES: Antisense and Sensibility

They do this by interfering with the activity of the messenger RNA strands that transfer genetic information from the cell's nucleus to its protein-making machinery.

ECONOMIST: DNA computing