NUCLEIC ACID
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LESSON OUTLINE:
HISTORY OF NUCLEIC ACID
UNDERSTANDING NUCLEIC ACID
BASIC STRUCTURES OF NUCLEIC ACID
TYPES OF NUCLEIC ACID
FORMATION OF NUCLEIC ACIDS
FUNCTIONS OF NUCLEIC ACID
HISTORY
Nuclein were discovered by
Friedrich Miescher in 1869
In the early 1880s
Albrecht Kossel
further purified the
substance and
discovered its highly
acidic properties. He
later also identified
the nucleobases.
In 1938 Astbury and Bell
published the first X-ray
diffraction pattern of
DNA.
In 1953 Watson and Crick
determined the structure of
DNA.
UNDERSTANDING
NUCLEIC ACID
Nucleic acids are the biopolymers, or small
biomolecules, essential to all known forms of life. The
term nucleic acid is the overall name for DNA and RNA.
They are now known to be found in all life forms
including within bacteria, archaea, mitochondria,
chloroplasts, viruses, and viroids.
Nucleotides are molecules consisting of a nucleoside and
a phosphate group. They are the basic building blocks of DNA
and RNA.
DNA and RNA are polymers (in the case of DNA, often very long
polymers), and are made up of monomers known as nucleotides.
When these monomers combine, the resulting chain is called a
polynucleotide (poly- = "many").
Nucleoside, a structural subunit of nucleic acids, the
heredity-controlling components of all living cells,
consisting of a molecule of sugar linked to a nitrogencontaining organic ring compound. In the most important
nucleosides, the sugar is either ribose or deoxyribose, and
the nitrogen-containing compound is either a pyrimidine
(cytosine, thymine, or uracil) or a purine (adenine or
guanine).
Nucleic acid sequence is a succession of base-pairs
signified by a series of a set of five different letters that indicate the
order of nucleotides forming alleles within a DNA (using GACT) or
RNA (GACU) molecule. By convention, sequences are usually
presented from the 5' end to the 3' end.
BASIC STRUCTURE OF
NUCLEIC ACID
Nucleic acids are composed of
nucleotides, which are the monomers made of
three components: a 5-carbon sugar, a
phosphate group and a nitrogenous base.
COMPOSITION - Carbon, Hydrogen,
Nitrogen, Oxygen, and Phosphorus
5 - CARBON SUGAR a pentose is a monosaccharide
(simple sugar) with five carbon atoms. The chemical formula of
all pentoses is C5H10O5, and their molecular weight is 150.13
g/mol.
PHOSPHATE is an anion, salt, functional group
or ester derived from a phosphoric acid.
NITROGEN BASES
or nitrogen-containing base, is an organic molecule with
a nitrogen atom that has the chemical properties of a base.
The main biological function of a nitrogenous base is to
bond nucleic acids together. A nitrogenous base owes its
basic properties to the lone pair of electrons of a nitrogen
atom.
These nitrogenous bases are adenine (A), uracil (U),
guanine (G), thymine (T), and cytosine (C). Thymine
and Uracil are distinguished by merely the presence or
absence of a methyl group on the fifth carbon (C5) of
these heterocyclic six-membered rings.
TYPES OF
NUCLEIC ACID
DEOXYRIBONUCLEIC ACID (DNA)
is a molecule composed of two chains that coil around each other to
form a double helix carrying genetic instructions for the development,
functioning, growth and reproduction of all known organisms and
many viruses
RIBONUCLEIC ACID (RNA)
is a polymeric molecule essential in various biological roles in coding,
decoding, regulation and expression of genes. RNA is assembled as a
chain of nucleotides, but unlike DNA, RNA is found in nature as a
single strand folded onto itself, rather than a paired double strand.
TYPES OF
NUCLEIC ACID
DEOXYRIBONUCLEIC
ACID
RIBONUCLEIC
ACID
SUGAR
DEOXYRIBOSE
RIBOSE
STRAND / HELIX
DOUBLE STRAND HELIX
SINGLE STRAND HELIX
BASES
ADENINE CYTOSINE GUANINE
THYMINE
ADENINE CYTOSINE GUANINE
URACIL
FORMATION OF
NUCLEIC ACIDS
Strings of nucleotides are bonded to form helical
backbones—typically, one for RNA, two for DNA—
and assembled into chains of base-pairs selected
from the five primary, or canonical, nucleobases.
Using amino acids and the process known as protein
synthesis, the specific sequencing in DNA of these
nucleobase-pairs enables storing and transmitting
coded instructions as genes. In RNA, base-pair
sequencing provides for manufacturing new proteins
that determine the frames and parts and most
chemical processes of all life forms.
FUNCTIONS OF
NUCLEIC ACIDS
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STORE GENETIC INFORMATION
– DNA
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TRANSFER GENETIC INFORMATION
– RNA
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ENERGY IN THE BODY (RNA) KNOWN AS
ATP OR ADENOSINE TRIPHOSPHATE.
BYE BYE