Educational Thread about Educational Stuff.

[aviator]

-Snip-

That notation is horrible, yet the pic is from a university?


Less history, more science

I've got ya covered buddy here's some stuff on the compisition of nucleic acids. Some is copy and pasta from my textbook some is my own words.

Spoiler :

From medicine to evolution, from agriculture to forensics, the properties of nucleic acids affect our lives every day. It is with nucleic acids that the concept of “information” entered the biological vocabulary. Nucleic acids are uniquely capable of coding for and transmitting biological information. Nucleic acids are polymers specialized for the storage, transmission, and use of genetic information. There are two types of nucleic acids: DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) and RNA (ribonucleic acid). DNA is a macromolecule that encodes he- reditary information and passes it from generation to genera- tion. Through RNA intermediates, the information encoded in DNA is used to specify the amino acid sequences of proteins and control the expression synthesis of other RNAs. During cell division and reproduction, information flows from exist- ing DNA to the newly formed DNA in a new cell or organism. In the nonreproductive activities of the cell, information flows from DNA to RNA to proteins. It is the proteins that ultimately carry out many of life’s functions. Nucleotides are the building blocks of nucleic acids Nucleic acids are polymers composed of monomers called nucleotides. A nucleotide consists of three components: a ni- trogen-containing base, a pentose sugar, and one to three phos- phate groups (Figure 4.1). Molecules consisting of a pentose sugar and a nitrogenous base—but no phosphate group—are RNA Ribose DNA Deoxyribose The base may be either a pyrimidine or a purine. called nucleosides. The nucleotides that make up nucleic ac- ids contain just one phosphate group—they are nucleoside monophosphates. The bases of the nucleic acids take one of two chemical forms: a six-membered single-ring structure called a pyrimi- dine, or a fused double-ring structure called a purine (see Figure 4.1). In DNA, the pentose sugar is deoxyribose, which differs from the ribose found in RNA by the absence of one oxygen atom (see Figure 3.16). During the formation of a nucleic acid, new nucleotides are added to an existing chain one at a time. The pentose sugar in the last nucleotide of the existing chain and the phosphate on the new nucleotide undergo a condensation reaction (see Figure 3.4), and the resulting bond is called a phosphodiester linkage (Figure 4.2). The phosphate on the new nucleotide is at- tached to the 5′-carbon atom of its sugar, and the linkage occurs between it and the 3′-carbon on the last sugar of the existing chain. Because each nucleotide is added to the 3′-carbon of the last sugar, nucleic acids are said to grow in the 5′-to-3′ direction. As with carbohydrates (see Section 3.3), nucleic acids can range in size. Oligonucleotides are relatively short, with about 20 nucleotide monomers, whereas polynucleotides can be much longer. • Oligonucleotides include RNA molecules that function as “primers” to begin the duplication of DNA; RNA mol- ecules that regulate the expression of genes; and synthetic DNA molecules used for amplifying and analyzing other, longer nucleotide sequences. • Polynucleotides, more commonly referred to as nucleic acids, include DNA and most RNA. Polynucleotides can be very long, and indeed are the longest polymers in the liv- ing world. Some DNA molecules in humans contain hun- dreds of millions of nucleotides. Base pairing occurs in both DNA and RNA DNA and RNA differ somewhat in their sugar groups, bases, and strand structure (Table 4.1). Four bases are found in DNA: adenine (A), cytosine ©, guanine (G), and thymine (T). RNA is also made up of four different monomers, but its nucleotides include uracil (U) instead of thymine. The sugar in DNA is de- oxyribose, whereas the sugar in RNA is ribose.



Long story short


Nucleic acid = polymer
polymer = monomers joined by covalent bonds through condensation reaction
Nucleic acid can be DNA or RNA 
DNA has a deoxyribose pentoses carbohydrate which is like the ribose but lacks an oxygen in the carbon two of its structure unlike ribose

Importance of DNA is that it stores transfers and uses biological information
When a cell is dividing DNA replicated transfering its information to new DNA 
When cell is not dividing DNA transfers Info to RNA  which then through processes codes for protein in translation 

Nucleic acid which is a macromolecule ( polymer with a molecular weight of 1000+ ) composed of monomer called nucleotide which is composed of Nitrogen containing base, Pentoses sugar and one to three phosphate group .

molecules with no phosphate group but that have nitrogenous base and sugar called nucleoside. In nucleic acid the nucleotides contain just one phosphate group - they are called nucleoside monophosphates 

Im gonna stop procrastinating and go back to studying lol 







 

Cheers mate, was planning on going over Nucleic acids this weekend. More interesting than photosynthesis that I've been studying in class recently lol.