nucleic acids

Question 1

what are nucleic acids?

Answer 1

they contain carbon (C), hydrogen (H), oxygen (O), nitrogen (N), and phosphorous (P). they are polymers formed from nucleotide monomers.

Question 2

what are the two main types of nucleic acids?

Answer 2

deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), and ribonucleic acid (RNA)

Question 3

what does DNA do?

Answer 3

provides the instructions for making proteins in cells

Question 4

what does RNA do?

Answer 4

involved in the synthesis of proteins from amino acids.

Question 5

what is the general structure of a nucelotide?

Answer 5

a sugar, phosphate group and a nitrogen base.

Question 6

how do nucleotides join together?

Answer 6

• join together in chains by bonds between the sugars and phosphate groups
• bonds are called phosphodiester bonds
• nitrogen bases are not involved in these bonds and stick out from the sugar-phosphate backbone.
• DNA is a double stranded form of the polymer, with weak hydrogen bonds between the nitrogen bases, these bonds also cause the DNA to twist into a spiral known as a double helix.

Question 7

what are the features of DNA

Answer 7

nitrogen bases; adenine (A), guanine (G), cytosine (C), thymine (T).
sugar; deoxyribose
molecular structure; double stranded, held together by hydrogen bonds between the complementary bases
main function; store instructions for building polypeptide chains.

Question 8

what are the features of RNA?

Answer 8

nitrogen bases; adenine(A), guanine(G), cytosine(C), and uracil (U)
sugar; ribose
molecular structure; single-stranded
main function; involved in building the polypeptide chains based on the information coded in the DNA.