What is the role of hydrogen bonding in transcription?

Hydrogen bonding plays a crucial role in transcription, specifically in the formation of complementary base pairs between the DNA template strand and the newly synthesized RNA strand. Ribonucleotides form hydrogen bonds with complementary deoxyribonucleotides on the unwound DNA template strand being transcribed. This pairing ensures the accurate synthesis of an RNA molecule. RNA polymerase reads the sequence of nucleotides on the DNA template strand and uses complementary base pairing to synthesize an RNA molecule. The specificity of hydrogen bonding ensures that adenine (A) pairs with thymine (T) in DNA or with uracil (U) in RNA, and cytosine (C) pairs with guanine (G). These hydrogen bonds stabilize the interaction between the RNA polymerase and the DNA template.