dna structure

Question 1

what does DNA stand for?

Answer 1

deoxyribonucleic acid

Question 2

what does RNA stand for?

Answer 2

ribonucleic acid

Question 3

what are the 3 components of DNA and what does its structure look like?

Answer 3

1. nitrogenous base
2. pentose sugar
3. phosphate group

Question 4

what are the 4(5) types of nitrogenous bases?

Answer 4

Adenine, Guanine, Cytosine, Thymine/Uracil

Question 5

what are the complementary base pairs and what does that say about the composition of bases?

Answer 5

adenine is complementary to thymine/uracil and guanine is complementary to cytosine

Question 6

what are the two categories (types?) of bases and how many rings do they have?

Answer 6

purine bases - adenine and guanine (2 rings)
pyrimidine bases - thymine/uracil and cytosine (1 ring)

Question 7

how are nucleic acids formed?

Answer 7

nucleotides combine through a condensation reaction between the phosphate group and pentose sugar to form the sugar-phosphate backbone that maintains DNA stability (happens on one end, complementary bases pair on other end)

Question 8

what is complementary base pairing and what are the bonds (+ how many) involved?

Answer 8

pairing between complementary base pairs, 2 hydrogen bonds between A & T and 3 hydrogen bonds between C & G

Question 9

what is DNA made out of? (in terms of strands and & shape)

Answer 9

2 polynucleotide strands held by hydrogen bonds form a double helix shape. these strands are anti-parallel (5’ to 3’ and 3’ to 5’)

Question 10

in terms of strands, how different is RNA from DNA?

Answer 10

RNA is single-stranded and has shorter strands