Deoxyribosenucleic acid

Tl. Taguchi, H., Laundy, M., Reid, C., Reynolds, E. H., and Chanarin, I., The effects of anticonvulsant drugs on thymidine and deoxyribosenucleic acid synthesis by human marrow cells. Br. J. Haematol. 36, 181-187 (1977). 

Preparation. The preparation of 2-deoxy-D-erythro-pentose by hydrolysis of the natural deoxypentosenucleic acids is tedious and the yields are low. The nucleic acids first are hydrolyzed enzymatically to deoxyribonucleo-sides (V-deoxyribofuranosyl purines and pyrimidines). Further mild acidic hydrolysis then liberates the sugar from the purine bases 57). The sugar-pyrimidine linkage, however, is more stable and its hydrolysis by stronger acid is accompanied by destruction of the deoxypentose to levulinic acid. Direct mercaptanolysis of deoxyribosenucleic acids has been employed to obtain the dibenzyl mercaptal of the deoxysugar 58). 

Nucleotides consist of a pentose sugar joined to a nitrogen base (purine or pyrimidine) and phosphate group. Nucleic acids are polymerized from nucleotides and consist of ribonucleic acid (RNA) and deoxyribosenucleic acid (DNA). In DNA, the pentose sugar is D-deoxyribose and the bases are adenine, guanine, thymine, and cytosine the pentose sugar in RNA is o-ribose and the bases are adenine, guanine, thymine, and cytosine. There also are other bases that occur infrequently in both RNA and DNA. 

The first step in the process is the transcription of information relating to a particular protein from the deoxyribosenucleic acid (DNA) to a species of ribosenucleic acid, which because it serves to carry this information to the ribosomes is referred to as messenger or m-RNA. In association with m-RNA, the ribosomes assemble the amino acids, recognised by their combination with an adaptor molecule (transfer or t-RNA), and then polymerise them in accordance with information contained in the m-RNA strand. Thus the information stored in the DNA is translated into protein structure. 

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