messenger RNA
Americannoun
noun
Etymology
Origin of messenger RNA
First recorded in 1960–65
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Kennedy and other health officials have criticized messenger RNA, or mRNA, technology that Moderna and other companies used for Covid-19 vaccines.
From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 10, 2026
Using messenger RNA as an intermediary in their actions, the vaccines instruct the body how to manufacture parts of a pathogen that its immune system can recognize and fight.
From Los Angeles Times • Aug. 12, 2025
A cell transcribes the ORF sequence into messenger RNA, which travels to cellular factories called ribosomes that assemble amino acid sequences into proteins.
From Science Magazine • Nov. 24, 2024
But studies later suggested that the pricier messenger RNA vaccines made by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna provided better protection against COVID-19 and its many variants, and most countries switched to those shots.
From Seattle Times • May 8, 2024
Notably, Brenner and Jacob later discovered the messenger RNA was a facsimile of the DNA chain—a copy made from the original.
From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee
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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.