Natural antisense transcript

The single-strand DNA which serves as the natural template for transcription is complementary to the transcribed RNA. When the transcript (RNA) is coding for or translatable into a protein or proteins, the transcript is called an mRNA which is also qualified as plus +) or positive sense RNA. The DNA strand originally used as the template for RNA polymerase is called noncoding, antisense, or minus (-) strand, in analogy to an RNA strand whose sequence cannot be directly converted to amino acid codons. 

---