Fantastic Voyage - Further Research 2 (DNA)

DNA  (Deoxyribonucleic Acid

- The name Deoxyribonucleic Acid comes from the sugars and phosphates that make the structure.

-The sugars of the helix is called Deoxyribose (the ribose structure has lost a oxygen atom), and the iron phosphate is an acid.

-The nucleric is also found in the nuclei of cells, and is also acidic.

- The DNA is a polymer, and this mean that it is a molecule that consisting of many repeating units called monomers. The repeating units in DNA is called Nucleotides.

 - Nucleotides holds together the molecules Deoxyribose (sugar), phosphate iron and nitrate.

- The ladder rung structures have two bases and is where genetic information is stored.

- The sugar and phosphate elements are used to construct the long strands that hold the bases, the bases themselves are made up of Nitrogen.

- There are two groups of bases, the Pyrimidines and the Purines. These bases are placed together in complementary pairs, which are as so:

Adenine (A) (Purines)

Thymine (T) (Pyrimidines)

Guanine (G) (Purines)

Cytosine (C) (Pyrimidines)

These complementary base pairings are held together by hydrogen bonds.

- The two backbone strands are antiparallel in direction and this is because of the carbon molecule structure.

- The Deoxyribose carbons are numbered 1 to 5 in the clockwise direction, the third carbon in every deoxyribose sugar connects to the phosphate (5th Carbon) group of the molecule below it.

- This antiparallel formation gives the twisted double helix appearance.

- DNA is found in every living organism. However, some organisms have a different structure for their DNA.

- Bacteria (Prokaryotes) do not have a membrane bound nucleus and their DNA structure float freely in the cytoplasm.

- Bacteria have a single circular chromosome found in the centre of the cell, they also have extra circles of DNA called Plasmids,

-These Plasmids hold extra genes, these can be coding for antibiotic resistance and increases their chance of survival.

- Eukaryotes (meaning organisms that cells nucleus are enclosed in a membrane) have linear DNA structures and are tightly wound around proteins called Histones.