Deoxyribonucleic acid hydrogen-bonding

Hydrogen bonding plays a critical role in the structure of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), the carrier of the genetic code and the molecule that is essential for all life on Earth. 

The nucleic acids known as deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) are the molecules that store genetic information. This information is carried as a sequence of bases in the polymeric molecule. Remarkably, the interpretation of this sequence depends upon simple hydrogen bonding interactions between base pairs. Hydrogen bonding is fundamental to the double helix arrangement of the DNA molecule, and the translation and transcription via ribonucleic acid (RNA) of the genetic information present in the DNA molecule. 

Herbert HE, HaUs MD, Hratchian HP, Raghavachari K. Hydrogen-bonding interactions in peptide nucleic acid and deoxyribonucleic acid a comparative study. J Phys Chem B 2006 110 3336-3343. 

Nucleic acids are of great interest because they are the units of heredity, the genes, and because they control the manufacture of proteins and the functions of the cells of living organisms. Hydrogen bonds play an important part in the novel structure proposed for deoxyribonucleic acid by Watson and Crick.1,5 This structure involves a detailed eomplement riness of two intertwined polynucleotide chains, which form a double helix.117 The complementariness in structure of the two chains was attributed by Watson and Crick to the formation of hydrogen bonds between a pyrimidine residue in one chain and a purine residue in the other, for each pair of nucleotides in the chains. 

In many ways, hydrogen bonds are responsible for life on Earth. They cause water to be a liquid rather than a gas at ordinary temperatures, and they are the primary intermolecular force that holds huge biomolecules in the shapes needed to play their essential roles in biochemistry. Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), for instance, contains two long molecular strands coiled around each other and held together by hydrogen bonds. 

Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) carries the genetic information of all cellular forms of life. DNA is usually found as a double helix, in which the nucleoside bases of the single strands are stacked upon each other, forming strong hydrogen bonds with... 

In the form of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), the macromolecular nucleic acids are of prime importance in biology because they carry the building plan for each living individual. They are identically reduplicated and inherited from one generation to the next, be it bacterium, plant, animal, or man. The information about every feature of and about every molecule contained in a living being is encoded in the nucleotide sequence of its DNA, which is read out and translated into the amino acid sequences of its proteins. In the many different steps involved in this protein biosynthesis, information transfer takes place which would be impossible without the weak hydrogen bonds. Because they can easily and rapidly be formed and broken, they are ideally suited for these dynamic processes which are so important for life. 

Hydrogen bonding occurs in many compounds. Any molecule with an O-H bond, such as the alcohols, will share a hydrogen with a nearby molecule and form a hydrogen bond. Molecules with an N-H bond will do the same. In fact, these hydrogen bonds play a critical role in the molecule common to all life on Earth— deoxyribonucleic acid or DNA. 

Pauling L, Corey RB. Specific hydrogen-bond formation be- 33. tween pyrimidines and purines in deoxyribonucleic acids. Arch. Biochem. Biophys. 1956 65 164-181. 

Crick (1954) proposed a two-stranded helix, somewhat reminiscent of the Watson-Crick double-strand helix which had been so successful for deoxyribonucleic acid. The model consisted of two polypeptide chains wound helically around a common axis and held together by interchain peptide hydrogen bonds. The peptide bonds were all in the cfs-configuration, and the repeating unit consisted of a pair of amino acid residues, one perpendicular and the other parallel to the fiber axis. As a result, planes... 

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