Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
The double helix is an important tertiary structure in nucleic acid molecules which is intimately connected with the molecule's secondary structure. A double helix is formed by regions of many consecutive base pairs. The nucleic acid double helix is a spiral polymer, usually right-handed, containing two nucleotide strands which base pair together.
The double-helix model of DNA structure was first published in the journal Nature by James Watson and Francis Crick in 1953, [6] (X,Y,Z coordinates in 1954 [7]) based on the work of Rosalind Franklin and her student Raymond Gosling, who took the crucial X-ray diffraction image of DNA labeled as "Photo 51", [8] [9] and Maurice Wilkins, Alexander Stokes, and Herbert Wilson, [10] and base-pairing ...
From the very early stages of structural studies of DNA by X-ray diffraction and biochemical means, molecular models such as the Watson-Crick nucleic acid double helix model were successfully employed to solve the 'puzzle' of DNA structure, and also find how the latter relates to its key functions in living cells.
B-DNA's favored conformations occur at high water concentrations; the hydration of the minor groove appears to favor B-DNA. B-DNA base pairs are nearly perpendicular to the helix axis. The sugar pucker which determines the shape of the a-helix, whether the helix will exist in the A-form or in the B-form, occurs at the C2'-endo. [13]
James D. Watson and Francis Crick described this structure as a double helix with a radius of 10 Å and pitch of 34 Å, making one complete turn about its axis every 10 bp of sequence. [3] The double helix makes one complete turn about its axis every 10.4–10.5 base pairs in solution.
Complementarity of DNA strands in a double helix make it possible to use one strand as a template to construct the other. This principle plays an important role in DNA replication , setting the foundation of heredity by explaining how genetic information can be passed down to the next generation.
The structure of the DNA double helix (type B-DNA). The atoms in the structure are color-coded by element and the detailed structures of two base pairs are shown in the bottom right. DNA exists as a double-stranded structure, with both strands coiled together to form the characteristic double helix.
The melting temperature, T m, occurs when half of the double-stranded nucleic acid has dissociated. If no additional nucleic acids are present, then [A], [B], and [AB] will be equal, and equal to half the initial concentration of double-stranded nucleic acid, [AB] initial. This gives an expression for the melting point of a nucleic acid duplex of