Nucleic Acid

What is Nucleic Acid?

Store and transmit hereditary information. A biological (DNA and RNA) that allows
organisms to reproduce. It is joined by phosphodiester linkages between the phosphate
of a nucleotide and the sugar of the next nucleotide.

Function of a Nucleic Acid?

- Its stores and transmit hereditary information.
- It allows organisms to reproduced.

How Nucleic Acid does connect?

- They are joined by phosphodiester linkage.

What are the two types of a Nucleic Acids?

DNA and RNA are the molecules that enable living organisms to reproduce their
complex equipment from one generation to the next.

What is DNA or Deoxyribonucleic acid?

- It is the genetic material that organism inherit from their parents. A very long and
consist of hundreds or thousands of genes, each occupying a specific position along
the single molecule.
- A DNA molecule stores the coded instruction for the synthesis of a specific protein. It
does not make protein.

Where do you think the gene directs the instruction for synthesizing the
protein?
- Into a type of RNA called messenger RNA or mRNA
The DNA contains the coded instruction for protein. Instead, the gene directs the
synthesis to a type of RNA called messenger RNA (mRNA) The mRNA molecule
than interacts with the protein synthesizing machinery to direct the production of
polypeptide.

DNA RNA Protein

Where do you think does protein synthesis occur?

- RIBOSOMES
 Nucleic Acid
Nucleic acids are polymers of monomers called nucleotides
A nucleotide is composed of 3 parts: a phosphate group, a five – carbon sugar
(pentose), and a organic molecule called nitrogenous base.

Pentose / 5 – carbon sugar in….

DNA – deoxyribose
RNA – ribose

There are 2 families of bases: Pyrimidines and Purine.

- Pyrimidines – characterized by a six – membered ring made up of carbon and
nitrogen atoms.
- Purines – are larger, with the six – membered ring fused to a five – membered ring.

Each of this family has a specific nitrogenous base/s that differ only in the functional
groups affected to the rings.

The 4 different nitrogenous bases

Cytosine
Pyrimidines
Thymine

Adenine
Purines
Guanine

In a DNA polymer, nucleotides are joined by covalent bonds called phosphodiester

linkages between the phosphate of one nucleotide and the sugar of the next
monomer and having a repeating pattern of sugar – phosphate.

James Watson and Francis Crick

They are working at Cambridge University, first proposed double-helix as the Three-
Dimensional structure of DNA:

1.) The two sugar-phosphate backbones are on the outside of the helix.
2.) The nitrogenous bases are paired in the interior of the helix

Most DNA molecules are very long – some are millimeters – with thousands or even
millions of base pairs holding the two chains together.

In this chain, Adenine (A) always pair with Thymine (T).

Guanine (G) always pairs with Cytosine (C)

DNA and protein as tape measures of Evolution

 Nucleic Acid
- The linear sequences of nucleotides in DNA molecules are passed from parents to
offspring.
- Two closely related species are more similar in DNA than are more distantly related.
- Molecular biology can be used to asses evolutionary kinship