Unit 1 (Chapter 3 Part 5) Nucleic Acids Flashcards
What accounts for 2% of the weight of humans and is an organic macromolecule composed of nucleotides?
Nucleic Acids.
The two types of nucleic acids are deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and ribonucleic acid (RNA).
What is the importance of nucleic acids?
The storage, expression, and transmission of genetic information.
What determines whether an organism is a human, a frog, an onion, or a bacterium?
Expression of genetic information.
What is a molecule that consists of two strands of nucleotides coiled around each other to form a double helix and it held together by hydrogen bonds according to the AT/GC rule?
DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid)
This stores genetic information in a specific way using building blocks.
What molecule consists of a single strand of nucleotides?
RNA (ribonucleic acid)
Decodes genetic information into instructions for linking a specific sequence of amino acids to form a polypeptide.
What is the monomer of DNA?
Nucleotide
What are the three components of a nucleotide monomer?
- One or more phosphate groups
- A five-carbon (pentose) sugar (deoxyribose or ribose) for DNA or RNA
- Single or double ring of carbon and nitrogen atoms known as a base.
What do you call the nucleotides of DNA and RNA?
Deoxyribonucleotides and ribonucleotides.
How many different nucleotides are present in DNA and why?
- They correspond to the four different bases that can be linked to deoxyribose.
What are the purine bases and what do they consist of?
They are the bases of adenine (A) and guanine (G), which have a fused double ring or carbon and nitrogen atoms.
What are the pyrimidine bases and what do they consist of?
Thymine (T), cytosine (C), and uracil (U), which have a single ring of carbon and nitrogen atoms. Single-ring like structure.
What forms the backbone of DNA?
The phosphate and sugar molecules. The bases project from the backbone.
Where do the links in nucleotides happen in DNA?
The phosphate group links the #3 carbon of one nucleotide to the #5 carbon of the next nucleotide.
How are the two nucleotide strands in DNA held together and where are the connected at to hold the double helix structure?
They are held my hydrogen bonds between the purine base of one strand and the pyrimidine base in the opposite strand.
What is the importance of the bonds between bases in DNA?
Only certain bases pair with other bases due to the locations of the hydrogen-bonding groups in the four bases.
If we knw the amount of one type of base in a DNA molecule, we can predict the relative amounts of each of the other three bases.
