A second important form of nucleic acid is called transfer RNA (tRNA) and is used in the process of translation. In translation, a sequence of bases in DNA (a gene) is translated into a sequence of amino acids and used to synthesize a protein. There are different tRNA molecules for each of the twenty naturally occuring amino acids.

The tRNA molecule is a single strand of RNA that folds onto itself to form several loops. The function of the tRNA molecule is to translate from DNA code into protein code and therefore has two important regions. The anticodon loop contains a sequence of three bases which complement the DNA code (the codon) for one amino acid. The CCA-terminus serves as a handle to which an enzyme can attach the amino acid specific for that tRNA molecule.