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Nucleic Acids and Proteins
- Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and ribonucleic acid (RNA) are polymers composed of nucleotides.
- Nucleotides consist of a nitrogenous base, a pentose (5 carbon sugar) and a phosphate group. The sugar found in RNA is ribose, the sugar found in DNA is deoxyribose.
- There are two groups of nitrogenous bases: pyrimidines - cytosine (C), thymine (T) and uracil (U) and purines adenine (A) and guanine (G). RNA contains uracil whereas DNA contains thymine.
- Two complementary strands of DNA pair up to form a double helix.
- Amino acids are the building blocks for proteins. Each has an asymmetric carbon atom bonded to an amino group (NH2) a carboxyl group (-COOH) a hydrogen atom and a side chain called an R group.
- Amino acids join together through the formation of peptide bonds to form polypeptides.The primary structure of a protein is the amino acid sequence in its polypeptide chain.
- The secondary structure of a protein is a result of hydrogen bonding between different regions of a polypeptide chain. Alpha helices and beta pleated sheets are the two major types of secondary structure.
- The tertiary structure is the overall three dimensional shape of the protein. Quaternary structure refers to the structure formed when multiple polypeptide chains interact to form a single protein.
Nucleic Acids and Proteins
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