Vocabulary Key Terms
Definitions
Anticodon
The branch of biology that studies heredity, the passing of traits
(characteristics) from parents to offspring.
Base Pair
The five carbon sugar found in DNA.
Central Dogma
The three-based code in DNA or mRNA
Chargaff’s Rule
Smaller segments of RNA nucleotides that transport amino acids to the
ribosome.
Codon
The synthesis of the mRNA from the template DNA.
Deoxyribose
The passing of traits from parents to offspring.
DNA Helicase
The processes in which parental strands of DNA separate, serve as
templates, and produce DNA molecules that have one strand of parental
DNA and one strand of new DNA.
The basic mechanism or chain of events of reading and expressing
genes that goes from DNA to RNA to Protein.
DNA Polymerase
Double Helix
A genetically determined characteristic.
Genetics
Associates with proteins to form ribosomes in the cytoplasm.
Heredity
Ligase
Any of a class of enzymes that catalyse the formation of covalent bonds
and are important in the synthesis and repair of biological
molecules, such as DNA.
The site of protein synthesis.
mRNA
One of the following: Adenine, Thymine, Guanine, Cytosine, Uracil.
Nitrogenous Base
The building blocks of DNA & RNA consisting of a five-carbon sugar,
a phosphate group, and a nitrogen-containing base.
Nucleotides
The shape of DNA that is often compared to a twisted ladder.
Okazaki Fragments
Replication
Rule stating that the bases in a nucleic acid always pair up in the same
way: A = T and G = C.
Ribose
The five carbon sugar found in RNA.
(Ribosomal RNA) rRNA
A process in which DNA has the unique ability to make an exact copy
of itself
Ribosome
An enzyme that breaks the hydrogen bonds holding the base pairs
together as it unwinds and unzips the double helix, allowing new
nucleotides to bind to the 2 single strands by base pairing.
An enzyme that adds complementary nucleotides to the template strand
of the unzipped double helix until the entire molecule has been
replicated.
The small segments of the lagging DNA strand.
RNA Polymerase
Semiconservation Replication
Traits
Long strands of RNA nucleotides that are formed complementary to one
strand of DNA.
Transcription
After DNA is unzipped in the nucleus, this is the enzyme that binds to a
specific section where an mRNA will be synthesized.
tRNA
The process through which the mRNA attaches to the ribosome and a
protein is assembled.
Translation
A sequence of three nucleotides in a region of transfer RNA that
recognizes a complementary coding triplet of nucleotides in messenger
RNA during translation by the ribosomes in protein biosynthesis.