DNA is a genetic material that is found in the cell of living beings; however, some living beings have RNA as genetic material, such in some viruses. The genetic information in the DNA is coded through four nucleotides; these are A (Adenine), G (Guanine), C (Cytosine) and T (Thymine). DNA is double-stranded; these strands have nucleotides that are linked through hydrogen bonds (Bailey, 2022). A forms hydrogen bond with T, G forms a hydrogen bond with C. Since hydrogen bonds are present in between the two strands, this makes the DNA strong, and it cannot be degraded easily. The backbone of the strands is formed of sugar and phosphates.
Fig: 1 Structure of DNA
hydrophobic interaction between bases. In double-helical DNA, the diameter is measured around two nanometers
There are five types of DNA; these are A-DNA, Z-DNA, C-DNA, D-DNA and E-DNA. Every strand of DNA has two ends; these are 3’ end and 5’ end. The 5’ end is marked with the presence of phosphate group, while 3’ has a hydroxyl group (Doamekpor et al., 2020). DNA is termed as a polynucleotide, as this molecule is formed of several numbers of nucleotides. Therefore nucleotide is referred to as a monomer. The shape of DNA is maintained through the help of hydrogen bonds and.
Fig 2: Different forms of DNA
DNA has helixes that can be either left-handed or right-handed. The stable kind of helix is right-handed helices which is observed in B DNA. At higher temperatures, the two strands get separated, while on cooling, these strands get hybridized again. Melting temperature is important in separating the strands of DNA; it is denoted as Tm, as G and C is paired with three hydrogen bonds, so more heat will be required to break the strands as compared with the A and T bond (Sato, 2020).
DNA has vital functioning as serving the role of genetic material in living organisms. It also helps in the formation of protein molecules through the translation process, it helps in determining the genetic coding, and it also assist in regulating different kinds of metabolic functions and in heredity (Huang & Zouh, 2021).
References
Bailey, J., (2022). Nucleosides, Nucleotides, Polynucleotides (RNA and DNA) and the Genetic Code. In Inventive Geniuses Who Changed the World (pp. 313-340). Springer, Cham.
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-81381-9_13
Doamekpor, S. K., Gozdek, A., Kwasnik, A., Kufel, J., & Tong, L., (2020). A novel 5′-hydroxyl dinucleotide hydrolase activity for the DXO/Rai1 family of enzymes. Nucleic Acids Research, 48(1), 349-358.
https://academic.oup.com/nar/article-abstract/48/1/349/5645008
Huang, R., & Zhou, P. K., (2021). DNA damage repair: historical perspectives, mechanistic pathways and clinical translation for targeted cancer therapy. Signal Transduction and Targeted Therapy, 6(1), 1-35.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41392-021-00648-7
Sato, Y., Sakamoto, T., & Takinoue, M. (2020). Sequence-based engineering of dynamic functions of micrometer-sized DNA droplets. Science Advances, 6(23), eaba3471.
https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/23/eaba3471?utm_source=miragenews&utm_medium=miragenews&utm_campaign=news
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