dna structure & replication Flashcards
what is a nucleotide composed of?
a pentose (five-carbon) sugar
a nitrogenous base
a phosphate group
what is a nucleoside composed of?
a pentose sugar
a nitrogenous base
what are the 4 nitrogenous bases?
adenine, thymine, guanine, cytosine
what is the difference between a deoxyribose sugar and a ribose sugar?
at the 2’ carbon, there is a hydrogen atom (H) in deoxyribose. whereas for ribose, at the 2’ carbon, there is a hydroxyl group (-OH).
the partial negative charge of the hydroxyl group in ribose repels the negative charge of the phosphate, preventing the RNA chain from coiling in as tight a helix as it does in DNA, so RNA is less stable than DNA and more susceptible to chemical and enzyme degradation
what are the purine bases?
adenine & guanine
what are the pyrimidine bases?
thymine, cytosine, uracil
how is a nucleoside formed?
a pentose and a nitrogenous base is linked together through a condensation reaction where a water molecule is lost. the 1’ carbon is linked in a glycosidic bond to the nitrogenous base
how is a nucleotide formed?
a nucleotide is formed by a condensation reaction between the nucleoside (pentose + nitrogenous base) and phosphate group, forming a phosphoester bond between the 5’ carbon of pentose and the phosphate group.
how are nucleotide chains, or polynucleotides, formed?
- 2 nucleotides join to form a dinucleotide by condensation between the 5’ phosphate group of one nucleotide and the 3’ hydroxyl group of the other to form a phosphodiester bond.
- the condensation reaction is repeated several million times to form a polynucleotide
- phosphodiester bonds between 5’ phosphate and 3’ hydroxyl groups of nucleotides form a linear, unbranched sugar-phosphate backbone
- phosphodiester bonds are strong covalent bonds that confer strength and stability on the polynucleotide chain
what does chargaff’s rule state about complementary base pairing?
- the is always equal proportion of adenine & thymine and equal proportion of guanine & cytosine
- there is always an equal proportion of purines and pyrimidines (i.e. A+G = 50%, C+T = 50%)
why do nitrogenous bases form complementary base pairs?
because of steric restrictions & hydrogen bond factors.
steric restrictions: pyrimidines have a single ring while purines are about twice as wide as pyrimidines, so purines should be paired with pyrimidines for the double helix to have a uniform 2nm diameter
hydrogen bond factors: A is capable of forming 2 hydrogen bonds with T, while G is capabale of forming 3 hydrogen bonds with C
describe the semi-conservative model of DNA replication
each of the2 daughter DNA molecules consists of one parental DNA strand and one newly-synthesised daughter DNA strand.
DNA separation
what is the function of helicases?
helicases bind to one strand of the DNA molecule, and uses ATP as an energy source to break the hydrogen bonds holding the two strands of DNA together.
this unwinds the DNA double helix and separates the parental DNA strands at the region of the replication fork.
each of the 2 parental DNA strands serve as the template for the synthesis of a new DNA strand.
DNA separation
what are the functions of single-strand DNA-binding proteins (SSB proteins)?
- SSB proteins temporarily stablises unwound single-stranded portion of the DNA double-helix by binding onto it. this prevents the ssDNA from reannealing to reform the duplex, keeping the 2 parental strands in the approporiate single-stranded condition to act as template
- protects ssDNA, which is very unstable, from being degraded.
DNA separation
what are the functions of topoisomerases?
topoisomerases cleave a strand of the helix to create a transient single-stranded nick. this relieves strain on the DNA molecule, which is tense due to supercoiling ahead of the replication fork during unwinding, by allowing free rotation around the intact strand and then reseals the broken strand.