Every time a cell divides, the hereditary information must be passed from the parent cell to the daughter cells. This is called replication. By definition, replication is the process by which a double-stranded DNA molecule is copied to produce two identical DNA molecules.
The process of copying a particular segment of DNA into RNA (mRNA) is called transcription, which results in the information contained in the segment of DNA being transcribed into mRNA. Translation is the stage where mRNA is decoded to build proteins that contains a specific series of amino acids.
It is important to note that for these events to occur, the double stranded helix of DNA must be separated.
