2.3 Nucleic Acids

Question 1

Nucleic acid?

Answer 1

Complex biomolecule that stores cellular information in the form of a code.

Question 2

Components of nucleic acid?

Answer 2

Monomers called nucleotides. Made up of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen and phosphorous.

Question 3

Nucleotide?

Answer 3

Made up of sugar, nitrogenous base, and phosphate group.

Question 4

DNA? Shape?

Answer 4

Deoxyribonucleic acid. A long molecule that contains our genetic code. Shape - double helix.

Question 5

RNA? Shape?

Answer 5

Ribonucleic acid. Takes the code from DNA and actually takes part in making our proteins. Shape - single strand.

Question 6

Deoxyribose?

Answer 6

Pentose sugar, forms a double stranded helix. Backbone of DNA is composed of repeating sugar and phosphates.

Question 7

Ribose?

Answer 7

The sugar in RNA. Similar to deoxyribose, except that deoxyribose lacks an oxygen.

Question 8

What does deoxy mean?

Answer 8

Without oxygen.

Question 9

Pentose sugar?

Answer 9

Sugar with 5 carbons.

Question 10

Nitrogenous bases?

Answer 10

There are four in DNA - adenine (A), guanine (G), cytosine (C), and thymine (T). In RNA, thymine is replaced with uracil.