Am I right in saying that in the 'production' of mRNA, the double helix is split, then glued together, and in the intermediary open section a string of mRNA is formed by another enzyme, 'mimicking' one of the sides of the original DNA?

Question

blues · Answer

Pretty much, yes. 

You could use the term 'transcribed' or 'transcription' instead of 'production.' But the rest of it is cool: an enzyme, RNA polymerase, breaks the hydrogen bonds between the two different strands of DNA. It uses one of them as a template, producing an mRNA which is complimentary to the template DNA strand. Complimentary in this context means that adenine A in the template will be uracil U in the mRNA, C will be G, G will be C, and T will be A.

Just a semantic note, I'd take the word 'glue' out. The enzyme, RNA polymerase, doesn't do any gluing. The hydrogen bonds between the bases reform by themselves because they are energetically favourable, without any added help from RNA polymerase or any other transcription related enzymes.

anonymous · Answer

Sorry about that, I understood that it was more pushing and pulling magnets away form each other than glue, but blue is a nice metaphor. Thank you!