DNA replication Flashcards
what is the big idea of DNA replication?
DNA replication copies the entire chromosome and occurs during the S-phase (synthesis) of the cell cycle
what does it mean by replication is semi-conservative?
it uses an existing parent
strand as the template
Who are the people you know in timeline order?
Levene
Chargaff
Franklin & Wilkins
Pauling
Watson & Crick
what did Phoebus Levene determine correctly about DNA
- DNA is made up of chains of nucleotides
- a nucleotide is a phosphate linked to a sugar linked to one of four nitrogenous bases
- nucleotides link in series phosphate to sugar
What did Phoebus Levene get wrong about DNA?
the tetranucleotide hypothesis, which is the idea of a repeating tetramer, order of bases exist in a fixed pretitive sequence, thus all bases appear in equal ratio
What did Erqin Chargaff discover about DNA?
isolated DNA from different organisms and measured numbers of each base present and found the number of A=T and the number of C=G
What did Linus Pauling propose? Right or wrong?
proposed the alpha helix secondary structure in proteins, but made it the idea of a triple helix which was wrong
what else did Linus Pauling get wrong?
- phosphate groups were shown as neutral molecules
- phosphates organized in the core for the helix negative charges on oxygen would repel
- bases facing outwards
What did Rosalind Franklin & Maurice WIlkins do?
x-ray diffraction of crystalline DNA fiber
what id x-ray crystallography?
a physics approach to examining biological molecules where a pure crystallized sample of the molecule is isolated, Xrays bombard the crystal sample and refract the rays in multiple directions and the diffraction pattern is analyzed to determine the moldecule’s 3D structure
what did the X-ray ‘expose’
- a double helix structure
- with a backbone of alternating phosphate and sugars
- nitrogenous bases are in the middle of the molecule
- bases are at right angles to the backbone
- molecule is a uniform helix with consistency in helical dimensions
what are the 4 measurements the x-ray interpretation of DNA was able to yield?
diameter
- distance between one helical turn
- distance between one stacked base pair
- angle of helical turns
what did James Watson and Francis Crick find?
- determined rules for base pairing, hydrogen bonding between AT, GC and the width of a purine and pyrimidine pair
What is Chargaff’s ratio?
the idea that the ratio of AT is 1:1 and the ratio of CG is also 1:1
How does Chargaff’s ratio dispute Levene’s tetranucleotide hypothesis
Leven’s idea was that all bases repeat equally as 1 of each base is in the tetranucleotide. But Chargaff found that there were different ratios of C to T so it was wrong
Describe the error in Pailing’s triple helix model
- phosphate groups were shown as neutral
- phosphates were in the core of the helix as the negative charges on the oxygen would repel
- bases faced outwards
what technique that Franklin and Wilkins used in determining the DNA structure
x-ray diffraction of crystalline DNA fiber
what are the three methods of DNA replication?
conservative, semi-conservative and dispersive
describe the conservative DNA replication model
the parental double helix remains intact and an all new copy is made
describe the semi-conservative DNA replication model
the two strands of the parental molecule separate and each functions as a template for synthesis of a new complementary strand
describe the dispersive DNA model
each strand of both daughter molecules contains a mixture of old and newly synthesized parts
What was the first step of Meselson and Stahl experiment?
Grew E.Coli cells in heavy nitrogen. centrifuge the DNA - it shows up heavy as DNA contains nitrogen atoms.
What was the second step of the Meselson & Stahl Experiment
transfer the E.Coli cells into a medium with light nitrogen (N14) where they went 1 round of replication, were centrifuged again
What was the third step of the Meselson & Stahl Experiment
second round of replication in light medium the centrifuged