Can you explain gene regulating proteins to me like I’m in the 5th grade?

Proteins are large molecules made up of chains of smaller molecules called amino acids. )
There are 20 amino acids. Think of amino acids as letters and DNA as a recipe book that has the letters of proteins in the correct order the body needs to put them together to make each specific protein. If the body wants to make insulin the body looks at the DNA for insulin and uses it to make insulin.
A gene regulating protein is something that interacts with DNA to either stop the body making the protein or to make it more likely the protein is made. For example it could atache its self to the DNA on top of the recipe and stop the recipe from being made.

Now to answer the question in the details… Take HIV. Viruses are basically nothing more than a string of DNA that ‘hijack’ a cells ability to make proteins in order to make copies of themselves. HIV is a retrovirus so instead of DNA it is RNA. This is a mirror image of the instructions in DNA. For the body to make copies of retrovisues they need to translate the RNA back to DNA and thing that does this is a protein called reverse transcriptase. Humans dont need this protein, it doesn’t do anything useful, but some (well, most) people have copies of it in the ‘junk’ DNA and HIV uses this to infect people. If someone doesnt have thisin their DNA or if it has not been “expressed” (ie used to make reverse transcriptase) then they can’t be infected with JHIV

@Lightlyseared The article said a “dormant retrovirus.” Do they mean already in the body? HIV isn’t pre-existing in the body.

Just adding I know some of the basics of DNA like ATCG and DNA basically is our genetic code while RNA is the communicator I guess? High school biology so it’s been a long time.

Also, I understand amino acids are the building blocks of protein.

I understand HIV duplicates using our cells.

After that I get confused.

My girlfriend did 23 and Me years ago. Can they check for this trait in her genome?

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