St. Thomas, St. John, and St. Croix-the three islands known to many as the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the reason millions of travelers head to the Caribbean every year.
This copying process is called transcription and the copy is mRNA. Transcription takes place in the cytoplasm (prokaryote) or in the nucleus (eukaryote). The transcription is performed by an enzyme called RNA polymerase. To make mRNA, RNA polymerase: 1  Binds to the DNA strand at a specific sequence of the gene called a promoter. 2  Unwinds and unlinks the two strands of DNA. 3  Uses one of the DNA strands as a guide or template.
Transcription starts when RNA polymerase unwinds the DNA segment. One strand, referred to as the coding strand, becomes the template with the genes to be coded. The polymerase then aligns the correct nucleic acid (A, C, G, or U) with its complementary base on the coding strand of DNA.