Hello all
I find it difficult for me to understand the idea of reverse complement. Can anyone one please explain it to me, like how it would help me to know the reverse complement of a sequence??
It is actually very simple. DNA is of course double stranded. Usually when someone gives you a DNA sequence, it is only one of the two strands and is written in the 5' to 3' direction. If you now converted that strand to the other strand (ie change every G to a C, every A to T and vice verse) and then write it again in the 5' to 3' direction (which is the convention we all use), that would be the reverse compliment. So you only need to know one strand sequence to derive the other strand sequence.
The reason that you care is that we like to read our DNA sequences so that the open reading frames are legible and make sense to our human minds (computers don't care), so we like the the ORF to start with ATG and then have the codons in order. But if you have the sequence from the "wrong" strand then the reverse compliment will give you the legible sequence.
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