{"id":182,"date":"2015-12-08T23:46:58","date_gmt":"2015-12-08T23:46:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.earth-site.co.uk\/Education\/?page_id=182"},"modified":"2024-10-01T13:52:46","modified_gmt":"2024-10-01T12:52:46","slug":"dna","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.earth-site.co.uk\/Education\/dna\/","title":{"rendered":"DNA"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Deoxyribonucleic acid or DNA is found in every cell of every living organism on the planet. It is the code which contains the genetic makeup of the organism.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/h2>\n
\n
\n

<\/a>
\n The Structure of DNA<\/a><\/strong><\/span>
\n Polynucleotides<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Dideoxynucleic acid molecule consisting of three components: a nitrogenous base,<\/strong> either a purine <\/strong>or pyrimidine;<\/strong> a pentose sugar, either ribose <\/strong>or deoxyribose<\/strong> and a phosphate group.<\/span><\/p>\n

A nitrogenous base + a sugar= nucleoside; a nucleoside + a phosphate= nucleotide.<\/span><\/p>\n

Purine: <\/span><\/strong>nine member double ring: Adenine and Guanine (A and G)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Pyrimidine:<\/strong> six member single ring: Cytosine and Thymine or Uracil in Rna (C, T and U)<\/span><\/p>\n

A purine bases will always bind to its corresponding pyrimidine base: A-T\/U and C-G. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"10_09-nitrogenous_bases.jpg\"<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/a>Structure of DNA<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n

 <\/p>\n

Each carbon atom of the pentose sugars is labelled with a prime sign eg. C-1’. The C-1’ atom of the pentose sugar is linked to the nitrogenous base and
\n C-3’ and 5’ atoms<\/a> are termini of a nucleic acid molecule. At the C-2’ position, deoxyribose has a hydrogen atom whereas ribose has a hydroxyl group. The presence of the OH group distinguishes RNA from DNA.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/span>\"iGen3_02-07_Figure-L.jpg\"<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.mun.ca\/biology\/scarr\/iGen3_02-07_Figure-L.jpg<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/a>Polynucleotides<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Two nucleotides are joined together by a phosphate group linked to two sugars. The phosphoric acid is joined to the two OH groups on the sugars by an ester linkage on both sides, creating a phosphodiester bond. At one end of the chain there is a free 3’- hydroxyl (OH) group and at the other end, a free 5’- phosphate group. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Two nucleotides joined together are called a dinucleotide, three is a trinucleotide and so on. Short chains of around 20 nucleotides are called oglionucleotides and longer chains are known as polynucleotides. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

DNA consists of two long polynucleotide chains that are coiled round a central axis to form a right- handed double helix. The chains run anti-parallel e.g. C-5’ to C-3’ orientations run in opposite directions. Two types of DNA molecules: right handed and the left handed mirror image referred to as Z-DNA. This contains only Cytosine and Guanine bases.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"dna.gif\"<\/p>\n

bbruner.org<\/span><\/a> <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"dna<\/p>\n

www.johnemsley.com<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The helical structure is maintained by hydrogen bonding between the bases. Hydrogen bonds are very weak electrostatic attractions between a covalently bonded hydrogen atom and an atom with an unshared electron pair such as a covalently bonded oxygen or nitrogen atom e.g. O2<\/sub>– <\/sup>….H+<\/sup><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/sup><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Deoxyribonucleic acid or DNA is found in every cell of every living organism on the planet. It is the code […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7017,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_edit_last":["1"],"_edit_lock":["1707423255:1"],"_wp_page_template":["default"],"ttr_page_title_checkbox":["true"],"ttr_page_foot_checkbox":["true"],"ttr_header_size_select":["None"],"ttr_background_repeat_enable_checkbox":["true"],"ttr_change_header_image_text":[""],"ttr_background_size_select":["None"],"ttr_header_repeat_enable_checkbox":["true"],"ttr_custom_style_text":[""],"_yoast_wpseo_focuskw":["DNA"],"_yoast_wpseo_metadesc":["Deoxyribonucleic acid or DNA is found in every cell of every living organism on the planet."],"_yoast_wpseo_linkdex":["58"],"_oembed_863c81c3a61d58d5283f6fc3bf50ea51":["{{unknown}}"],"ampforwp-amp-on-off":["default"],"_oembed_13f45ae6232415b6ff5e571583cd086f":["{{unknown}}"],"_oembed_776360d89ac31f9f5e7e8c09c2c7b137":["{{unknown}}"],"_thumbnail_id":["7017"],"_et_pb_use_builder":[""],"_et_pb_old_content":[""],"_et_gb_content_width":[""],"ast-featured-img":["disabled"],"theme-transparent-header-meta":[""],"adv-header-id-meta":[""],"stick-header-meta":[""],"footnotes":[""],"_links_to":[""],"_links_to_target":[""],"_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":["13"],"_yoast_wpseo_content_score":["90"],"_yoast_wpseo_estimated-reading-time-minutes":["1"],"_yoast_wpseo_wordproof_timestamp":[""],"rank_math_primary_category":["13"],"rank_math_description":["Deoxyribonucleic acid or DNA is found in every cell of every living organism on the planet."],"rank_math_focus_keyword":["DNA"],"rank_math_news_sitemap_robots":["index"],"rank_math_robots":["a:1:{i:0;s:5:\"index\";}"],"rank_math_seo_score":["78"],"_oembed_78906d838d51529098434f46f2f85c9d":["{{unknown}}"],"_wds_opengraph":["a:3:{s:5:\"title\";s:0:\"\";s:11:\"description\";s:0:\"\";s:6:\"images\";a:1:{i:0;s:0:\"\";}}"],"_wds_twitter":["a:3:{s:5:\"title\";s:0:\"\";s:11:\"description\";s:0:\"\";s:6:\"images\";a:1:{i:0;s:0:\"\";}}"],"_wds_focus-keywords":["DNA"],"_wds_title":[""],"_wds_metadesc":["Deoxyribonucleic acid or DNA is found in every cell of every living organism on the planet."],"_wds_meta-robots-adv":[""],"_wds_meta-robots-nofollow":[""],"_wds_canonical":[""],"_et_dynamic_cached_shortcodes":["a:0:{}"],"_et_dynamic_cached_attributes":["a:0:{}"]},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-biology"],"yoast_head":"\nDNA - 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