DNA and cDNA are two types of nucleic acids that are composed of deoxyribonucleotides. There are significant differences between the two.
Basis of differentiation | DNA | cDNA |
Definition | Refers to a type of nucleic acid that occurs naturally in the genome of several organisms and serves as their genetic material | Refers to a form of nucleic acid that is artificially synthesized using mRNA of an organism as the template |
Occurrence in nature | Occurs naturally | Does not occur naturally |
Template used | mRNA | |
Synthesized from | Existing genomes | Cytosolic mRNA |
Synthesized during | DNA replication | Reverse transcription |
Enzyme involved | DNA polymerase | Reverse transcriptase |
Number of strands | Double-stranded | Single-stranded |
Quantity of base pairs | Larger number of base pairs compared to cDNA | Fewer base pairs than DNA |
Presence of coding and non-coding sequences | Both coding and non-coding sequences (introns and exons) are present | Only coding regions or exons are present – lacks introns or noncoding regions |
Collective name | The total DNA of an organism is called the genome | The total cDNA of an organism is called the transcriptome |
Used to create | Genomic libraries | cDNA libraries |