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50 free RNA trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
DNA gets the headlines, but RNA does the work. It carries the message, reads the code, builds the protein and, in a good number of viruses, is the entire genome. It can also act as an enzyme, which is why many biologists think an RNA world came before DNA and proteins existed at all. This quiz covers RNA from the ground up: the sugar and the base that set it apart from DNA, the three classic types and what each one does, the cloverleaf and the anticodon, the splicing machinery, and the long list of Nobel Prizes that RNA research has produced — from Severo Ochoa in 1959 to Katalin Karikó in 2023 and the microRNA prize of 2024. Retroviruses, reverse transcriptase, RNA interference and the lipid nanoparticles inside an mRNA vaccine all get their turn. The early questions are introductory-biology level; the late ones ask for the names of enzymes, the size of a microRNA and who coined 'RNA world'. Fifty questions, every one sourced.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which base does RNA use in place of DNA's thymine?
Uracil
Thymine is just uracil with a methyl group added, which makes DNA more stable and easier to proofread.
Q 02Which feature of the ribose sugar chemically distinguishes RNA from DNA?
A 2' hydroxyl group
That extra –OH makes RNA more reactive and pushes its helices into the A-form rather than DNA's B-form.
Q 03Which two RNA bases are purines?
Adenine and guanine
Purines have a double ring; the single-ring pyrimidines in RNA are cytosine and uracil.
Q 04Who discovered nucleic acids in 1868 and called the material 'nuclein'?
Friedrich Miescher
He isolated it from pus-soaked bandages collected from a surgical clinic in Tübingen.
Q 05Which type of RNA makes up about 80% of the RNA in most cells?
Ribosomal RNA
It is never translated into protein itself, yet it forms the catalytic core of every ribosome.
Q 06Who coined the term 'messenger RNA'?
Jacob and Monod
Brenner and Crick conceived the idea in April 1960 while Jacob described the PaJaMo experiment to them.
Q 07What is added to the 5' end of a eukaryotic messenger RNA soon after it starts being made?
A modified guanine cap
The 7-methylguanosine cap protects the message and helps ribosomes find its start.
Q 08What does the poly(A) tail on a messenger RNA chiefly protect it from?
Exonucleases
Oddly, in bacteria a poly(A) tail does the opposite and speeds degradation.
Q 09The secondary structure of transfer RNA is usually drawn in what shape?
A cloverleaf
In three dimensions the cloverleaf folds into an L shape that slots into the ribosome's A and P sites.
Q 10What three-nucleotide sequence on a transfer RNA pairs with a codon?
Anticodon
Some anticodons pair with more than one codon thanks to 'wobble' at the third position.
Q 11Which three-letter tail at the 3' end of a transfer RNA carries the amino acid?
CCA
Cytosine-cytosine-adenine is the universal attachment point; in many organisms it is added after transcription.
Q 12Transfer RNA was formerly known by what name?
Soluble RNA
Crick had predicted an 'adaptor' molecule, and the small soluble RNA in the cytoplasm turned out to be it.
Q 13Who discovered transfer RNA in 1958?
Zamecnik, Hoagland and Stephenson
Robert Holley then worked out the full sequence of yeast alanine tRNA in 1965 and won a Nobel for it.
Q 21In the RNA world hypothesis, RNA filled which two roles now split between DNA and proteins?
Genetic storage and catalysis
The ribosome, an RNA enzyme at the heart of every cell, is seen as a surviving relic of that era.
Q 22The first microRNA, lin-4, was discovered in which organism?
A nematode worm
It controls developmental timing in C. elegans and was assumed for years to be a worm oddity.
Q 23Roughly how long is a mature microRNA?
About 22 nucleotides
Dicer trims the hairpin precursor down to a short duplex that then guides gene silencing.
Q 14Who first observed ribosomes in the mid-1950s with an electron microscope?
George Emil Palade
He shared the 1974 Nobel Prize with Claude and de Duve for mapping the cell's internal structure.
Q 15A bacterial 70S ribosome is made of which two subunits?
50S and 30S
Svedberg units measure sedimentation rate, not size, which is why 50 plus 30 equals 70.
Q 16Why are ribosomes classified as ribozymes?
Their catalytic core is RNA
The peptidyl transferase reaction that links amino acids is performed by the RNA, not the proteins.
Q 17Which protozoan was Thomas Cech studying when he found self-splicing RNA?
Tetrahymena
The intron in a ribosomal RNA gene cut itself out with no protein involved at all.
Q 18Who shared the 1989 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Cech for discovering catalytic RNA?
Sidney Altman
Altman found the catalytic RNA inside RNase P, the complex that matures pre-tRNAs.
Q 19Which of these is a named ribozyme?
Hammerhead
Others include the hairpin ribozyme, the VS ribozyme and the leadzyme.
Q 20Who coined the term 'RNA world' in 1986?
Walter Gilbert
Alexander Rich had floated the concept back in 1962, and Woese's 1967 book The Genetic Code discussed it too.
Q 24Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun won the Nobel Prize for microRNA in which year?
2024
It came more than 30 years after their back-to-back lin-4 papers in 1993.
Q 25Fire and Mello's Nobel-winning RNA interference work used which organism?
Caenorhabditis elegans
Their 1998 paper showed double-stranded RNA, not single-stranded, was the trigger for silencing.
Q 26Which enzyme chops long double-stranded RNA into short siRNAs?
Dicer
The fragments are 21 to 23 nucleotides long and load into the RISC complex to find their targets.
Q 27Early RNA-silencing clues came from trying to deepen the colour of which flower?
Petunia
Adding extra pigment genes produced white patches instead — the genes were switching each other off.
Q 28What was the first siRNA-based medicine, approved in 2018?
Patisiran
Alnylam's drug, sold as Onpattro, was also the FDA's first approval of lipid nanoparticles as a delivery system.
Q 29Which enzyme lets a retrovirus copy its RNA genome into DNA?
Reverse transcriptase
The 'retro' in retrovirus refers to this backward flow of information, the reverse of the usual pattern.
Q 30Which two scientists independently discovered the RNA-to-DNA copying enzyme in 1970?
Temin and Baltimore
They shared the 1975 Nobel Prize with Renato Dulbecco; the discovery overturned a simple reading of the central dogma.