Nucleic Acids Details

Question 1

Which molecule is used as genetic material in all living organisms?

Answer 1

DNA(deoxyribonucleic acid)

Question 2

Types of nucleic acids

Answer 2

-DNA(deoxyribonucleic acid)
-RNA(ribonucleic acid)

Question 3

Components of nucleotides

Answer 3

-a pentose sugar(with five carbon atoms and a five-atom “ring”)
-a phosphate(acidic and negatively charged part of nucleic acids)
-a base(containing nitrogen and has either one or two rings of atoms in its structure)

Question 4

Bases can be arranged in any sequence along a strand of molecules(T/F)

Answer 4

True

Question 5

Bases in DNA

Answer 5

-Adenine(A)
-Cytosine(C)
-Guanine(G)
-Thymine(T)

Question 6

Bases in RNA

Answer 6

-Adenine(A)
-Cytosine(C)
-Guanine(G)
-Uracil(U)

Question 7

Why are bases sometimes called nitrogenous bases

Answer 7

They all contain nitrogen

Question 8

The nucleotides in a strand of DNA or RNA are linked together by…

Answer 8

covalent bonds(between the pentose sugar and the phosphate of the next one)

Question 9

The sequence of bases is how genetic information is stored(T/F)

Answer 9

True

Question 10

Number of strands of nucleotides in RNA

Answer 10

1

Question 11

Number of strands of nucleotides in DNA

Answer 11

2

Question 12

Why is the bonding of the pentose sugar(of one nucleotide) to phosphate(of the next one) a condensation reaction?

Answer 12

Water is a product of the reaction

Question 13

Complementary base pairs in DNA

Answer 13

-Adenine with Thymine(A-T)
-Cytosine with Guanine(C-G)

Question 14

Properties of the 2 strands in DNA

Answer 14

-Antiparallel(run alongside each other but in opposite directions)
-Wound together to form a double helix

Question 15

DIffrences between DNA and RNA

Answer 15

-The pentose sugar is ribose in RNA but deoxyribose in DNA
-DNA has the base thymine but RNA has uracil instead
-RNA usually has one strand of nucleotides while DNA usually has two

Question 16

Roles of complementary base pairing in cells

Answer 16

-DNA replication(so genetic information can be passed on to daughter cells)
-Transcription
-Translation

Question 17

Capacity of DNA to store information

Answer 17

Effectively limitless; since bases can be arranged in any sequence in DNA(and genes alone have thousands of bases)

Question 18

Number of different codons

Answer 18

64(this is because each base in a codon can be any of four, so there are 4×4×4 combinations)

Question 19

Meaning of each of the 64 codons

Answer 19

-Most codons specify one particular amino acid(i.e. add a specific amino acid to the polypeptide chain)
-One codon signals that protein synthesis should start
-Three codons signal that protein synthesis should stop

Question 20

Why is genetic code considered universal

Answer 20

All organisms use the same genetic code(all species use the same four bases A,T,C and G, and each base sequence codes for the same amino acid in all species) with only minor variations

Question 21

Implications of the universality of the genetic code

Answer 21

All life evolved from the same original ancestor, with minor differences added since then