Deoxyribose nucleic acid

Watson J D and Crick F H C 1953 A structure for deoxyribose nucleic acid Nature 171 737-8... 

Watson and Crick published their work in a pa per entitled A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid in the British journal A/ature on April 25 1953 In addition to being one of the most important pa pers of the twentieth century it is also remembered for one brief sentence appearing near the end... 

Any one nucleotide, the basic building block of a nucleic acid, is derived from a molecule of phosphoric acid, a molecule of a sugar (either deoxyribose or ribose), and a molecule of one of five nitrogen compounds (bases) cytosine (C), thymine (T), adenine (A), guanine (G), uracil (U). 

The sugars are typically ribose (ribonucleic acids, RNA), or 2-deoxyribose (deoxyribonucleic acids, DNA). There are five common bases in nucleic acids adenine (A) thymine (T) uracil (U) cytosine (C) and guanine (G). DNA polymers incorporate the four bases. A, T, C, and G, and RNA, the set A, U, C, and G. 

Watson, J.D., Crick, F.H.C. Molecular structure of nucleic acids. A structure for deoxyribose nucleic acid. Nature 171 737-738, 1953. 

As is well-known, nucleic acids consist of a polymeric chain of monotonously reiterating molecules of phosphoric acid and a sugar. In ribonucleic acid, the sugar component is represented by n-ribose, in deoxyribonucleic acid by D-2-deoxyribose. To this chain pyrimidine and purine derivatives are bound at the sugar moieties, these derivatives being conventionally, even if inaccurately, termed as pyrimidine and purine bases. The bases in question are uracil (in ribonucleic acids) or thymine (in deoxyribonucleic acids), cytosine, adenine, guanine, in some cases 5-methylcytosine and 5-hydroxymethylcyto-sine. In addition to these, a number of the so-called odd bases occurring in small amounts in some ribonucleic acid fractions have been isolated. 

The nucleic acids DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) and RNA (ribonucleic acid) are biological polymers that act as chemical carriers of an organism s genetic information. Enzyme-catalyzed hydrolysis of nucleic acids yields nucleotides, the monomer units from which RNA and DNA are constructed. Further enzyme-catalyzed hydrolysis of the nucleotides yields nucleosides plus phosphate. Nucleosides, in turn, consist of a purine or pyrimidine base linked to Cl of an aldopentose sugar—ribose in RNA and 2-deoxyribose in DNA. The nucleotides are joined by phosphate links between the 5 phosphate of one nucleotide and the 3 hydroxyl on the sugar of another nucleotide. 

The Chemistry of Ribose and Deoxyribose, W. G. Overend and M. Stacey, Chapter 2 in The Nucleic Acids, Vol I. Chemistry and Biology, Edited by E. Chargaff and J. N. Davidson, Academic Press, (1955) 9- 80. 

Three classes of nucleic acid triple helices have been described for oligonucleotides containing only natural units. They differ according to the base sequences and the relative orientation of the phosphate-deoxyribose backbone of the third strand. All the three classes involve Hoogsteen or reverse Hoogsteen-like hydrogen bonding interaction between the triple helix form-... 

Deoxyribose nucleic acid (DNA) Comprises a backbone with four nucleotide bases, adenine, cytosine, guanine and thymine, bound to it. The genetic information in all cells is encoded in this genome of double-stranded DNA, comprising 3 billion base pairs located in the chromosomes. 

About 40 different sugars are formed. Those required for nucleic acid synthesis, ribose and deoxyribose, are obtained in yields of less than 1%. It is completely unclear whether these could have been separated from the others under primeval Earth conditions (Shapiro, 1988). 

The actual building blocks for the nucleic acids are the nucleotides, which are formed in an esterification reaction between nucleosides and phosphate three OH functions of ribose, and two of deoxyribose, can undergo esterification ... 

In the two nucleic acids, the sugar component consists solely of D-ribose or D-deoxyribose. 

As discussed in Chap. 6, nucleic acids contain D-ribose or D-deoxyribose. The corresponding L-form is banished from the information carriers RNA and DNA. So the question is why L-amino acids and D-sugars and not the opposite Two hypotheses are at the fore in this scientific discussion ... 

Swift H. The deoxyribose nucleic acid content of animal nuclei. Physiol. Zool. 1950 23 169-198. 

Figure 1.40 The two forms of sugar residues commonly found in nucleic acids. 3-D-Ribose is the sugar constituent of RNA, while p-D-2-deoxyribose is a component of DNA.

Three types of monomers found in DNA, a nucleic acid, are the phosphate group, the deoxyribose group and a base. These are illustrated by... 

The relationship between the DNA in the nucleus and proteins in the cytoplasm is not direct. The information in the DNA molecule is transmitted to the protein-synthesizing machinery of the cell via another informational nucleic acid, called messenger RNA (mRNA), which is synthesized by an enzyme called RNA polymerase. Although similar to DNA, mRNAs are single-stranded, and possess the base uracil instead of thymine and the sugar ribose rather than deoxyribose. These molecules act as short-lived copies of the genes being expressed. 

Those nucleosides found in the nucleic acids DNA and RNA involve the joining of ribose of deoxyribose to a purine or a pyrimidine base. One such nucleoside is adenosine, in which a nitrogen of adenine is linked to carbon 1 of the pentose, ribose. In this form it is a component of RNA but as a phosphory-lated derivative of adenosine (e.g. ATP), which is a high energy compound, it fulfils an important role in metabolism. The dinucleotides NAD and NADP are two cofactors necessary for many enzymic transformations and these also contain /V-glycosides of ribose phosphate. Other important nucleosides are found... 

The nucleotides of RNA and DNA consist of three components a carbohydrate, a phosphate group and an organic nitrogenous base. There are two types of carbohydrate molecule in nucleic acids, both of which are D-pentoses, i.e. contain five carbon atoms. The carbohydrate in RNA is ribose, while DNA contains deoxyribose, which has a hydrogen atom instead of a hydroxyl group attached to the carbon in the 2 position (Figure 13.1). 

Diaminobenzoic acid (DABA) reacts with aldehydes of the form RCH CHO to produce a strongly fluorescent compound. Acid-catalysed removal of the purine base from the nucleic acid exposes the 1 and 2 carbons of deoxyribose... 

In 1953, James Watson and Francis Crick (Figure 9) suggested a structure for deoxyribose nucleic acid (DNA). The suggestion had important novel features. One was that it had two helical chains, each coiling around the same axis but having opposite direction. The two helices going in opposite direction, and thus complementing each other, is a simple consequence of the twofold symmetry of the whole double... 

So far, I have described the primary structure of a nucleic acid. DNA is a linear polynucleotide based on 2 -deoxyribose as sugar and A, Ci C, and T as bases. RNA is a linear polynucleotide based on ribose as sugar and A, G, C, and U as bases. In both... 

A nucleotide consists of a heterocyclic base linked to a sugar (ribose or deoxyribose) and a phosphate group also linked to the sugar (Figure 10.6). Nucleic acids are polymers of nucleotides linked together by phosphodiester bonds (Figure 10.7). The enzymes that catalyse the breakdown of nucleic acids to nucleotides are nucleases. 

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