DNA_transcription_translation

A simple, fast program which transcribes a DNA strand into messenger RNA (mRNA), which it then translates into amino acids.

What does it do?

It takes in a DNA strand as input and converts this strand to a complementary messenger RNA strand using these mappings:

A → U
T → A
C → G
G → C

For example, GTACTAGAGCATTT would be converted to CAUGAUCUCGUAAA
After this, it looks for a start codon (AUG) and a stop codon (UAA, UAG, UGA) and it removes anything out of the range from start to stop.
For example, CAUGAUCUCGUAAA would be converted to AUGAUCUCGUAA
Then, it turns the result of the previous step into a list broken into 3-character items.
For example, AUGAUCUCGUAA would be converted to ['AUG', 'AUC', 'UCG', 'UAA']
Finally, it compares each item in the list to the amino_acids.py file, which is basically a predefined codon chart.
This returns a list of the amino acids for the codons: ['AUG', 'AUC', 'UCG', 'UAA'] would return ['Methionine', 'Isoleucine', 'Serine', 'STOP']

You can find sample DNA strands and what the script returns for them in the sample_strands.txt file.
WARNING: I HAVEN'T DONE A LOT OF TESTING, SO USE THIS TOOL AT YOUR OWN RISK.