Cell communication (biology)
In cells, DNA is housed in the nucleus and it never leaves. The DNA within the nucleus is transcribed by tRNA, and the transcriptions of the DNA become RNA. The RNA (ribonucleic acid) leaves the nucleus to float freely around the cytoplasm, and it contains the instructions of the DNA that are vital to the coding, decoding, regulation and expression of genes. The ribosomes then take the RNA messages and turn them into proteins that build cells. When a virus enters a cell and inserts its DNA code into the nucleus, it gets transcribed and released into the cell for the ribosome to make it into a protein. This is how viral infections occur. The cell then explodes with the overproduction of the virus, releasing it into the body to infect any and all other cells it finds. It is theorized that through evolution, cells developed a defense system called RNAi (RNA interference) to stop the production of the proteins that have suspicious mirror image messages of the RNA. They don’t just destroy the suspicious messages, but the correct messages as well to stop all production of that message. This is a cell’s self-destruct mechanism and every cell, plant and animal, have RNAi: a way to turn off the production of a certain gene inside the protein.
Endomembrane system
The endoplasmic reticulum (ER) is a membranous synthesis and transport organelle that is an extension of the nuclear envelope. More than half the total membrane in eukaryotic cells is accounted for by the ER. The ER is made up of flattened sacs and branching tubules that are thought to interconnect, so that the ER membrane forms a continuous sheet enclosing a single internal space. This highly convoluted space is called the ER lumen and is also referred to as the ER cisternal space. The lumen takes up about ten percent of the entire cell volume. The endoplasmic reticulum membrane allows molecules to be selectively transferred between the lumen and the cytoplasm, and since it is connected to the nuclear envelope, it provides a channel between the nucleus and the cytoplasm.