🧬 What Types of RNA Are There?

There are 7 different types of Ribonucleic Acids (RNAs) and those are:

1. Messenger RNA (mRNA): mRNA’s function is to code proteins, and roughly 5% of all RNA is mRNA.
   

2. Ribosomal RNA (rRNA): rRNA is a critical structural component of ribosomes. rRNA catalyzes the formation of peptide bonds during protein synthesis, and roughly ~80% of total RNA is rRNA
   

3. Transfer RNA (tRNA): tRNA is critical in the process of transcription of mRNA into proteins. tRNA can be considered as adapters between mRNA code and amino acids during protein synthesis within ribosomes. Roughly 15% of total RNA is tRNA
   

4. Small nuclear RNA (snRNA): snRNA plays a critical role in RNA splicing.

5. Small nucleolar RNA (snoRNA): snoRNA's role is to serve as a guide for RNA modification and processing.

6. Micro RNA (miRNA): miRNA's role is to block the translation of distinct mRNAs.
   

7. Small interfering RNA (siRNA): The role of siRNA is to mediate the degradation of distinct mRNAs and the closing of gene loci, leading to decreased gene expression.

Relative distribution of RNA across different types of RNA. Majority of RNA is rRNA. The small orange circle refers to other 4 types of RNA: snRNA, snoRNA, miRNA and siRNA.