4.6: Nucleic Acid Flashcards
What is nucleic acid?
Macromolecules composed of chains of monomer called nucleotides
How many classes of nucleic acids are there?
- Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA)
- Ribonucleic acid (RNA)
What are the nucleotide structures?
- 5 pentose sugar
- nitrogenous base
- phosphate group
Where is deoxyribose sugar found?
In deoxyribonucleic acid, is a modified sugar that has a hydrogen atom at carbon number two
Where is ribose sugar found?
In ribonucleic acid with a hydroxyl group at carbon number 2
How many nitrogenous base are there?
- Purine - large double rings
- adenine and guanine - Pyrimidine - single ring structure
- cytosine, uracil, thymine
Where is the phosphate group and the nitrogenous base located?
Phosphate group - 5th carbon of pentose sugar
Nitrogenous base - 1st carbon of pentose sugar
What is the process that takes place in the formation of a polynucleotide?
Condensation where different nucleotides are joined to form a polynucleotide by phosphodiester bonds
What is deoxyribonucleic acid?
Carries genetic information. Found in the nucleus and has long polynucleotide strands in a double-helix structure
Give two important features of the Watson-Crick DNA model
- A double stranded helix where the two nucleotide strands are spirally twisted around each other and coiled
- Anti parallel where the 5’ end of one strand is paired with the 3’ end of its complementary strand
What is ribonucleic acid?
Important in protein synthesis. Found mainly in the cytoplasm and the polynucleotide strands are short with no double helix
What are the types of RNA?
- Messenger RNA (mRNA) where its to transcript the genetic code
- Ribosomal RNA (rRNA) is a structural component of ribosome
- Transfer RNA (tRNA) is to convert DNA information into polypeptide sequences
