A nucleic acid is a chain of nucleotides which stores genetic information in biological systems. It creates DNA and RNA
RNA
Ribonucleic acid (RNA) is a polymeric molecule implicated in various biological roles in coding, decoding, regulation, and expression of genes. RNA and DNA are nucleic acids, and, along with proteins and carbohydrates, constitute the three major macromolecules essential for all known fo…
Full Answer
What is nucleic acid?
Nucleic acid. Written By: Nucleic acid, naturally occurring chemical compound that is capable of being broken down to yield phosphoric acid, sugars, and a mixture of organic bases (purines and pyrimidines).
Who discovered nucleic acid?
The Swiss scientist Friedrich Miescher discovered nucleic acid first naming it as nuclein, in 1868. Later, he raised the idea that it could be involved in heredity. Nucleic acid was first discovered by Friedrich Miescher in 1869 at the University of Tübingen, Germany.
Where are nucleic acids found in the human body?
Occurrence and nomenclature. Although first discovered within the nucleus of eukaryotic cells, nucleic acids are now known to be found in all life forms including within bacteria, archaea, mitochondria, chloroplasts, viruses, and viroids. (note: there is debate as to whether viruses are living or non-living ).
What is the role of nucleic acids in transmission of information?
Nucleic Acid Definition. Later experiments revealed that another type of nucleic acid – RNA, or ribonucleic acid – acted as a “messenger” that could carry copies of the instructions found in DNA. Ribonucleic acid was also used to pass down instructions from generation to generation by some viruses.
What is a interesting fact about nucleic acid?
Nucleic acids hold the basic building blocks for life. Deoxyribonucleic acid are found in all cells. DNA is organized into x-shaped chromosomes. In humans it is found in the nucleus of the cell.
What are 5 facts about DNA?
Here are 6 weird but true facts about DNA.Your DNA could stretch from the earth to the sun and back ~600 times. ... We're all 99.9 percent alike. ... Genes make up only about 3 percent of your DNA. ... A DNA test can reveal you're more Irish than your siblings. ... The human genome contains 3 billion base pairs of DNA.More items...•
What are 10 facts about DNA?
10 Fascinating Facts About DNADNA contains four building blogs: guanine, adenine, thymine, and cytosine.A single chromosome anywhere between 50 million and 250 million base pairs.There are around 3 million DNA bases in our genome.Paternity DNA tests compare DNA between a father and child.More items...
Why are nucleic acids important?
Nucleic acids are the most important macromolecules for the continuity of life. They carry the genetic blueprint of a cell and carry instructions for the functioning of the cell.
Is DNA a nucleic acid?
Nucleic acids, deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and ribonucleic acid (RNA), carry genetic information which is read in cells to make the RNA and proteins by which living things function.
What is the color of DNA?
Figure 2: The four nitrogenous bases that compose DNA nucleotides are shown in bright colors: adenine (A, green), thymine (T, red), cytosine (C, orange), and guanine (G, blue).
What are three facts about RNA?
RNA performs many functions in an organism, such as coding, decoding, regulating, and expressing genes. About 5% of the weight of a human cell is RNA. Only about 1% of a cell consists of DNA. RNA is found in both the nucleus and cytoplasm of humans cells.
What is unique about DNA?
DNA's unique structure enables the molecule to copy itself during cell division. When a cell prepares to divide, the DNA helix splits down the middle and becomes two single strands. These single strands serve as templates for building two new, double-stranded DNA molecules - each a replica of the original DNA molecule.
How much DNA is in a human?
Each human cell has around 6 feet of DNA. Let's say each human has around 10 trillion cells (this is actually a low ball estimate). This would mean that each person has around 60 trillion feet or around 10 billion miles of DNA inside of them.
What is nucleic acid made of?
Nucleic acids are made of nitrogen-containing bases, phosphate groups, and sugar molecules. Each type of nucleic acid has a distinctive structure and plays a different role in our cells.
Where are nucleic acids found?
Although first discovered within the nucleus of eukaryotic cells, nucleic acids are now known to be found in all life forms including within bacteria, archaea, mitochondria, chloroplasts, and viruses (There is debate as to whether viruses are living or non-living).
Where do nucleic acids come from?
Nucleic acids, macromolecules made out of units called nucleotides, come in two naturally occurring varieties: deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and ribonucleic acid (RNA). DNA is the genetic material found in living organisms, all the way from single-celled bacteria to multicellular mammals like you and me.
What are nucleic acids?
Nucleic acids are naturally occurring chemical compounds that serve as the primary information-carrying molecules in cells. They play an especially...
What is the basic structure of a nucleic acid?
Nucleic acids are long chainlike molecules composed of a series of nearly identical building blocks called nucleotides. Each nucleotide consists of...
What nitrogen-containing bases occur in nucleic acids?
Each nucleic acid contains four of five possible nitrogen-containing bases: adenine (A), guanine (G), cytosine (C), thymine (T), and uracil (U). A...
When were nucleic acids discovered?
Nucleic acids were discovered in 1869 by Swiss biochemist Friedrich Miescher.
What is a nucleic acid?
Typically, a nucleic acid is a large molecule made up of a string, or “polymer,” of units called “ nucleotides .”. All life on Earth uses nucleic acids as their medium for recording hereditary information – that is nucleic acids are the hard drives containing the essential blueprint or “source code” for making cells.
Why are scientists using nucleic acids?
In fact, scientists are using these molecules to build the basis of an “artificial life form”, which could maintain the artificial nucleic acid and extract information from it to build new proteins and survive. Generally speaking, nucleic acids themselves differ in every organism based on the sequence of nucleotides within the nucleic acid.
How do nucleic acids differ?
Generally speaking, nucleic acids themselves differ in every organism based on the sequence of nucleotides within the nucleic acid. This sequence is “read” by cellular machinery to connect amino acids in the correct sequence, building complex protein molecules with specific functions.
How do nucleic acids store information?
Nucleic Acids Store Information Like Computer Code. By far the most important function of nucleic acids for living things is their role as carriers of information. Because nucleic acids can be created with four “bases,” and because “base pairing rules” allow information to be “copied” by using one strand of nucleic acids as a template ...
What is the name of the chain of nucleotides that stores genetic information?
A nucleic acid is a chain of nucleotides which stores genetic information in biological systems. It creates DNA and RNA, which store the information needed by cells to create proteins. This information is stored in multiple sets of three nucleotides, known as codons.
Why is DNA important to a cell?
Because the DNA source code is just as vital to a cell as your operating system is to your computer, DNA must be protected from potential damage. To transport DNA’s instructions to other parts of the cell, copies of its information are made using another type of nucleic acid – RNA. It’s these RNA copies of genetic information which are sent out ...
What type of nucleic acid is used to carry instructions from generation to generation?
Later experiments revealed that another type of nucleic acid – RNA, or ribonucleic acid – acted as a “ messenger ” that could carry copies of the instructions found in DNA. Ribonucleic acid was also used to pass down instructions from generation to generation by some viruses.
Where are nucleic acids found?
Although first discovered within the nucleus of eukaryotic cells, nucleic acids are now known to be found in all life forms including within bacteria, archaea, mitochondria, chloroplasts, and viruses (There is debate as to whether viruses are living or non-living ).
What are the components of a nucleic acid?
Each nucleotide consists of three components: a purine or pyrimidine nucleobase (sometimes termed nitrogenous base or simply base ), a pentose sugar, and a phosphate group which makes the molecule acidic.
What is the substructure of a nucleobase?
The substructure consisting of a nucleobase plus sugar is termed a nucleoside. Nucleic acid types differ in the structure of the sugar in their nucleotides–DNA contains 2'- deoxyribose while RNA contains ribose (where the only difference is the presence of a hydroxyl group ).
What is the role of nucleic acid sequence in protein synthesis?
The encoded information is contained and conveyed via the nucleic acid sequence, which provides the 'ladder-step' ordering of nucleotides within the molecules of RNA and DNA. They play an especially important role in directing protein synthesis.
How is the sequence of amino acids in a protein read?
The code is read by copying stretches of DNA into the related nucleic acid RNA in a process called transcription.
What are the two main classes of nucleic acids?
The two main classes of nucleic acids are deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and ribonucleic acid (RNA). If the sugar is ribose, the polymer is RNA; if the sugar is the ribose derivative deoxyribose, the polymer is DNA. Nucleic acids are naturally occurring chemical compounds that serve as the primary information-carrying molecules in cells and makeup ...
How does DNA differ from RNA?
One DNA or RNA molecule differs from another primarily in the sequence of nucleotides. Nucleotide sequences are of great importance in biology since they carry the ultimate instructions that encode all biological molecules, molecular assemblies, subcellular and cellular structures, organs, and organisms, and directly enable cognition, memory, and behavior ( see Genetics ). Enormous efforts have gone into the development of experimental methods to determine the nucleotide sequence of biological DNA and RNA molecules, and today hundreds of millions of nucleotides are sequenced daily at genome centers and smaller laboratories worldwide. In addition to maintaining the GenBank nucleic acid sequence database, the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov) provides analysis and retrieval resources for the data in GenBank and other biological data made available through the NCBI web site.
What are the different types of nucleic acids?
The two most well-known types of nucleic acids are DNA and RNA. DNA stands for Deoxyribonucleic Acid, a mouthful we know, while RNA stands for Ribonucleic Acid, also not the easiest to say the first time. Although it gets easier, we promise.
To conclude
Nucleic acids are surprisingly stable proteins that transfer genetic material between cells with little to no information lost. So, in conclusion, this acid acid is responsible for carrying information between cells and also play a key role in other processes, such as protein synthesis.
Where are nucleic acids found?
These large molecules are called nucleic acids because they were first identified inside the nucleus of cells, however, they are also found in mitochondria and chloroplasts as well as bacteria and viruses.
What is the backbone of a nucleic acid?
When nucleotides bond to each other to form DNA or RNA, the phosphate of one of the nucleotides attaches to the 3-carbon of the sugar of the other nucleotide, forming what is called the sugar-phosphate backbone of the nucleic acid.
What are the bases of DNA?
DNA is composed of two sugar-phosphate backbones and nucleotide bases. There are four different bases: guanine, cytosine, thymine and adenine. DNA contains sections called genes, which encode the body's genetic information.
What is the name of the material that is renamed nucleic acid?
He found it behaved as an acid, so the material was renamed nucleic acid. Nucleic acid refers to both DNA and RNA. In 1938, the first x-ray diffraction pattern of DNA was published by Astbury and Bell. In 1953, Watson and Crick described the structure of DNA.
What are the two types of polymers in DNA?
Both DNA and RNA are polymers made up of monomers called nucleotides. Each nucleotide consists of three parts: 1 a nitrogenous base 2 a five-carbon sugar (pentose sugar) 3 a phosphate group (PO 43-)
What are the two parts of DNA and RNA?
Both DNA and RNA are polymers made up of monomers called nucleotides. Each nucleotide consists of three parts: a nitrogenous base . a five-carbon sugar (pentose sugar) a phosphate group (PO 43-) The bases and the sugar are different for DNA and RNA, but all nucleotides link together using the same mechanism.
What is the process of copying a cell's genetic code?
When a cell divides, a copy of this genetic code is passed to the new cell. The copying of the genetic code is called replication . RNA is a single-stranded molecule that can complement or "match up" to DNA.
What is the role of nucleic acids in the body?
Last Updated On: June 27, 2021 by Lucas. Organic macromolecules play a major role in our body. Nucleic acids are one class of such macromolecules that have a very significant role to play. They are the ones that are responsible for various biosynthetic activities that are carried out in the cellular level.
What are the functions of nucleic acids?
They are a type of macromolecules responsible for performing a wide range of functions including carrying genetic information from generation to generation.
What is a nucleoside made of?
So, a nucleoside is made up of either a ribose and a heterocyclic nitrogen base or, a deoxyribose and a heterocyclic nitrogen base.
What is the bond between a pentose sugar and a nitrogen base?
A glycosidic bond is responsible for connecting a pentose sugar to a nitrogen base. A glycosidic bond is a covalent bond that joins a carbohydrate molecule to another molecule which may or may not be a carbohydrate. A covalent bond is a chemical bond which includes the sharing of electron pairs between atoms. 27.
How long is mRNA?
They are not very long (only 73-95 nucleotides long). They make up nearly 15% of total cellular RNA. Messenger RNA or mRNA. mRNA are responsible for helping in the encoding the sequence of amino acids in proteins. mRNA carry the information from DNA to the translation complex (a place where proteins are synthesized).
What is a polysaccharide?
Polysaccharides are polymeric (a polymer is a large molecule, usually known as macromolecule that is composed of many repeated subunits) carbohydrates that are composed of monosaccharaide units’ chain s.
When did Rossenbeck and Feulgen develop DNA staining techniques?
Rossenbeck and Feulgen developed DNA-specific staining techniques in 1924. 23. Feulgen eventually used these techniques to demonstrate that most of the DNA content of a cell is present inside the cell nucleus. He demonstrated this in 1937.
Nucleic acids benefits
Despite limited research, proponents claim that foods rich in nucleic acids can offer a variety of benefits — from a stronger immune system to improved digestion and quicker muscle recovery ( 2 ).
1. Meat
At 1.5–8 grams of nucleic acids per 3.5 ounces (100 grams), meat is considered one of the foods richest in these compounds ( 2, 3 ).
2. Fish
Fish is another rich source of nucleic acids. Like meat, fish is thought to provide 1.5–8 grams of nucleic acid per 3.5 ounces (100 grams) ( 3 ).
3. Seafood
Seafood can be split into two categories. Both categories provide a significant, albeit smaller, source of nucleic acids than meat and fish. These include:
4–6. Beans, peas, and lentils
Beans, lentils, and peas are other interesting sources of nucleic acids. Vegans and vegetarians can still get the benefits of nucleic acids in their diets with legumes.
7. Mushrooms
Most vegetables contain very few nucleic acids. Mushrooms may be the sole exception.
The bottom line
Nucleic acids are found in all living things, including the foods you eat.
What happens to DNA?
This could include errors during transcription, damage from ultraviolet light, or any of a host of other activities. There are many repair mechanisms, but some damage isn't repaired. This means you carry mutations!
What is DNA and RNA?
Key Takeaways: DNA Facts. DNA is the acronym for deoxyribonucleic acid. DNA and RNA are the two types of nucleic acids the code for genetic information. DNA is a double-helix molecule built from four nucleotides: adenine (A), thymine (T), guanine (G), and cytosine (C). Even though it codes for all the information that makes up an organism, ...
How much DNA does every human share?
Every human being shares 99.9% of their DNA with every other human. 1 . If you put all the DNA molecules in your body end to end, the DNA would reach from the Earth to the Sun and back over 600 times (100 trillion times six feet divided by 92 million miles).
How much DNA do fruit flies share?
Humans share 60% of genes with fruit flies, and 2/3 of those genes are known to be involved in cancer. 2 . You share 98.7% of your DNA in common with chimpanzees and bonobos. 3 . If you could type 60 words per minute, eight hours a day, it would take approximately 50 years to type the human genome.
Overview
Nucleic acids are biopolymers, macromolecules, essential to all known forms of life. They are composed of nucleotides, which are the monomers made of three components: a 5-carbon sugar, a phosphate group and a nitrogenous base. The two main classes of nucleic acids are deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and ribonucleic acid (RNA). If the sugar is ribose, the polymer is RNA; if the sugar is th…
History
• Nucleic acid was first discovered by Friedrich Miescher in 1869 at the University of Tübingen, Germany. He gave its first name as nuclein.
• In the early 1880s Albrecht Kossel further purified the substance and discovered its highly acidic properties. He later also identified the nucleobases.
Occurrence and nomenclature
The term nucleic acid is the overall name for DNA and RNA, members of a family of biopolymers, and is synonymous with polynucleotide. Nucleic acids were named for their initial discovery within the nucleus, and for the presence of phosphate groups (related to phosphoric acid). Although first discovered within the nucleus of eukaryotic cells, nucleic acids are now known to be found in all life forms including within bacteria, archaea, mitochondria, chloroplasts, and viruses (There is debate a…
Molecular composition and size
Nucleic acids are generally very large molecules. Indeed, DNA molecules are probably the largest individual molecules known. Well-studied biological nucleic acid molecules range in size from 21 nucleotides (small interfering RNA) to large chromosomes (human chromosome 1 is a single molecule that contains 247 million base pairs ).
In most cases, naturally occurring DNA molecules are double-stranded and RNA molecules are si…
Topology
Double-stranded nucleic acids are made up of complementary sequences, in which extensive Watson-Crick base pairing results in a highly repeated and quite uniform Nucleic acid double-helical three-dimensional structure. In contrast, single-stranded RNA and DNA molecules are not constrained to a regular double helix, and can adopt highly complex three-dimensional structures that are based on short stretches of intramolecular base-paired sequences including both Wats…
Sequences
One DNA or RNA molecule differs from another primarily in the sequence of nucleotides. Nucleotide sequences are of great importance in biology since they carry the ultimate instructions that encode all biological molecules, molecular assemblies, subcellular and cellular structures, organs, and organisms, and directly enable cognition, memory, and behavior. Enormous efforts have gone into the development of experimental methods to determine the nucleotide sequenc…
Types
Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) is a nucleic acid containing the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms. The DNA segments carrying this genetic information are called genes. Likewise, other DNA sequences have structural purposes or are involved in regulating the use of this genetic information. Along with RNA and proteins, DNA is one of the three major macromolecules that are essential for all known forms of life. DNA consi…
See also
• Comparison of nucleic acid simulation software
• History of biochemistry
• History of molecular biology
• History of RNA biology – Aspect of history of a biological field of study