Nucleic Acids (DNA)

Question 1

what is a genome?

Answer 1

the total DNA of an organism (coding for all its characteristics)

Question 2

what is a chromosone?

Answer 2

a chromosome is a straight (linear) strand of DNA
- most cells contain pairs of chromosomes - two strands with the same genes

Question 3

what is a gene?

Answer 3

a gene is a short sections of DNA within a chromosome - it codes for a specific protein (which gives us characteristics)

Question 4

what is DNA?

Answer 4

DNA is the chemical which contains the information for making proteins - it contains the instructions for all the structures and reactions needed in all the cells of an organism

Question 5

what is DNA made out of?

Answer 5

two chains of nucleotides

Question 6

what is the shape of DNA?

Answer 6

a double helix (DNA is a double stranded molecule)

Question 7

what is a nucleotide?

Answer 7

a nucleotide is formed of sugar (deoxyribose), a phosphate and a nitrogenous base

Question 8

what are the four bases of DNA?

Answer 8

• adenine
• thymine
• cytosine
• guanine

Question 9

what does adenine always pair up with?

Answer 9

thymine (A + T)

Question 10

what does cytosine always pair up with?

Answer 10

guanine (G + C)

Question 11

when the bases pair up what happens?

Answer 11

they join their two sugar-phosphate backbones together