DNA Structure and Gene Function
DNA Structure and Gene Function
DNA Structure and Gene Function
Gene Function
Life depends on DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid), a molecule
with a remarkable function: It stores the information that
each cell needs to produce proteins.
Because proteins have so many critical functions, the
instructions in DNA make it possible.
Given DNA’s central role in life, it is amazing to consider
that biologists only confirmed that
DNA is the genetic material in the
1950s.
First, biochemist Erwin Chargaff had
shown that the amount of guanine in a
DNA molecule always equals the amount
of cytosine, and the adenine always equal
the amount of thymine.
He found that each species had unique
percentages of each type of nucleotide.
The human cell had 31% of its bases as
adenine, 31% as thymine, 19% as guanine,
and 19% as cytosine.
Second, English physicist Maurice
Wilkins and chemist Rosalind
Franklin used a technique called X-
ray diffraction to determine the
three-dimensional shape of the
molecule. The technique shows
pattern of a regularly repeating
structure of building blocks.
James Watson and
Francis Crick combined
those clues to build a
ball-and-stick model of
DNA molecule. The
model shows two
strands that make up a
DNA molecule that are
wound around each
other, forming a double
spiral molecule
resembling a twisted
ladder.
The double helix resembles a twisted ladder. The twin rails of
the ladder, also called the sugar-phosphate “backbones”, are
alternating units of deoxyribose and phosphate joined with
covalent bonds.
The ladder rungs are A-T and C-G base pairs joined by
hydrogen bonds. The two strands of a DNA molecule are
complementary to each other, that is, the sequence of each
strand determines the sequence of the other.
In reality, the amount of DNA in any
cell is immense; in humans, for
example, each nucleus contains
some 6.4 billions base pairs. An
organism’s genome is all of the
genetic materials in its cells.
In eukaryotic cell, the majority of
the genome is divided among
multiple chromosomes housed inside
the cell’s nucleus; each
chromosomes is a discrete package
of DNA coiled around proteins.
DNA Stores Genetic Information:
An Overview
Watson and Crick describe the relationship between nucleic
acids and proteins as a flow of information they called the
“central dogma”.
Parts/Components DNA RNA
Bases Adenine(A), Thymine (T), Cytosine(C), Adenine(A), Uracil(U), Cytosine(C),
Guanine(G) Guanine(G)