Nucleotides and Nucleic Acids

• Nucleotides


  Monomer of nucleic acids, organic molecules composed of a pentose sugar, a base and a phosphate group
• Deoxyribose


  A pentose biological molecule
• DNA


  • A double stranded polynucleotide that contains the genetic material of an organism and is made up of deoxyribonucleotide monomers joined together by phosphodiester bonds
• DNA nucleotide


  The monomer that makes up DNA and consists of deoxyribose, a nitrogenous base and a phosphate group
• DNA polymerase


  Catalyses the formation of phosphodiester bonds between nucleotides during the synthesis of a new DNA strand
• RNA polymerase


  Catalyses the formation of phosphodiester bonds between nucleotides during the synthesis of a new RNA strand
• mRNA


  A type of RNA that carries genetic information from the DNA in the nucleus to the ribosomes for translation
• Phosphorylated


  Molecules have a phosphate group
• Purine


  Large bases which contain double carbon ring structures
• Pyrimidine


  Smaller bases which contain single carbon ring structures
• Condensation reaction


  A reaction that joins two molecules together with the formation of a chemical bonds and involves the elimination of water
• Phosphodiester bond


  Made up of two hydroxyl groups in phosphoric acids with the hydroxyl group on other molecules forming ester bonds
• Pentose sugar


  A monosaccharide with five carbon atoms
• Hydrolysis reaction


  Water is used to break a larger molecule into two smaller molecules
• Antiparallel


  The two polynucleotides strand lie side by side and run in opposite directions
• Nitrogenous bases


  A molecule that contains nitrogen and has the chemical properties of a base
• Semi-conservative replication


  Each molecule is made up of 1 original strand and one new strand. The original strand acts a template
• Helicase


  An enzyme that catalyses the unwinding and unzipping of DNA in processes such as replication and transcription
• Transcription


  The process of copying out the DNA sequence of a gene in the similar alphabet of RNA
• Translation


  The process that takes the information passed from DNA as mRNA and turns it into a series of amino acids bound together with peptide bonds
• Codons


  A sequence of three nucleotides
• Triplet


  A term used to describe the fact that DNA is grouped into three base long codons that are read together and code for an amino acid
• Anticodons


  A sequence of nucleotides that are complementary to codons
• DNA polymerase


  A type of enzyme that is responsible for forming new copies of DNA
• Mutation


  A change to the DNA base sequence that alters the sequence of amino acids in a protein
• Universal


  A term used to describe the fact that the same codon code for the same amino acids in all organisms
• Non-overlapping


  A term used to describe the fact that each base is only part of one codon and that each codon is read one at a time in order
• Degenerate


  A term used to describe the fact that some amino acids can be coded for by multiple different codons