DNA as the Genetic Material Flashcards
the belief that genetic material passed down from parents to their children exists in the _____ and these structures explain inheritance patterns
Chromosome Inheritance Theory
Discovered the 3 major components that make up a nucleotide and how DNA and RNA are put together
Phoebus Levene
What 3 things are nucleotides made up of?
- Phosphate group
- Sugar
- Nitrogenous Bases
the amount of adenine is roughly equal to that amount of thymine and the amount of cytosine is about the same as the amount of guanine
Chargaff’s Rule
What do mispairings between bases, that aren’t detected and corrected by enzymes during replication, result in?
Mutations
the process of beaming x-rays onto a crystalline molecule to measure how the molecule bends the beams and then using those measurements to develop a 3D picture of the structure of the molecule
X-ray Crystallography
Who first used x-ray crystallography to photograph the 3D structure of DNA?
Rosalind Franklin
A double helix is composed of what 2 things?
- 2 very long sugar-phosphate backbones
- Base pairs
the 2 helical strands run parallel to each other but go in opposite directions
Antiparallel
What type of bonding is used in DNA structures?
Hydrogen Bonding
Why is hydrogen bonding important to DNA structure? List 3 things
- Allows the characteristic ladder shape to form
- This bonding is strong enough to hold the bases together
- This bonding is weak enough to break when needed
a nitrogenous base and a sugar without a phosphate
Nucleoside
a nitrogenous base, a sugar, and 1-3 phosphates
Nucleotide
DNA is an array of what?
Nucleotides
What 3 properties make DNA critically important to life?
- DNA can be copied
- DNA carries information and contains instructions for all the characteristics an organism will exhibit
- DNA can mutate and recombine > help an organism adapt and survive in a dynamic environment
the process of copying DNA
Replication
What 3 things is DNA replication essential for?
- Cell Growth
- Cell Repair
- Cell Reproduction
a series of events that leads to DNA replication and the division of cytoplasm and organelles to produce 2 daughter cells
Cell Cycle
Name the 2 main stages of the cell cycle?
- Interphase
- Mitosis
the process of copying DNA that results in each DNA molecule being made up of 1 old conserved strand of DNA and 1 newly synthesized one
Semiconservative DNA Replication