Answer:
Nucleic acids are long
chain macromolecules which are formed by end to endpolymerisation of large
number of repeated units called nucleotides. Nucleic acids show awide range of
secondary structures. A secondary structure is the set of interactionsbetween
bases and sugar phosphate backbone and is responsible for the shape thatnucleic
acid.
James Watson
and Francis Crick proposed a secondary structure of DNA moleculesbased on the
crystallographic studies.
(i) DNA or
deoxyribonucleic acid is a helically twisted double-chain polydeoxyribo-
nucleotide macromolecule.
(ii) The two
strands of DNA run anti-parallely to each other called as DNA duplex.
(iii) The
spiral twisting of DNA has two types of alternate grooves, i.e., major and
minor.
(iv) One
turn of 360° of the spiral has about 10 nucleotides on each strand of DNA
occupying a distance of about 3.4 nm.
(v) The
nucleotides within each strand are held together by the phosphodiester bonds between
the 5' carbon of one nucleotide and the 3' carbon of the adjacent nucleotide.
These strong
covalent bonds holds the sugar/phosphate backbone together.
(vi) The two
strands of DNA are held together by weak hydrogen boiias between the nitrogenous
bases. These hydrogen bonds are base specific. That is adenine forms 2hydrogen
bonds with thymine CA=T and cytosine forms 3 hydrogen bonds with guanine (CG).
(vii) As
specific and different nitrogen bases occur on two DNA chains, they are said to
becomplementary, i.e., urine lies opposite to pyrimidine. This
purine-pyrimidine pairingalso contributes to the thickness of strand, i.e.,
2nm, and makes the two chainscomplementary.
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