DNA : Magical code for Life
Cell is the basic unit of life and DNA is the genetic blue print of all
living cells.Deoxyribonucleic acid is the ultimate repository of potentially
meaningful information in the cell.DNA is a germ plasm of all life styles.
DNA was first identified and isolated in 1869 by Swiss physician
Friedrich Miescher and he named it as "nuclein "as it was first
identified in nuclei of human white blood cells. The term
"nuclein " was later changed to nucleic acid which
eventually changed to DNA(Deoxyribonucleic acid )[1].
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Friedrich Miescher[2]
In 1953
James Watson and Francis Crick marked a milestone in the history of science
by discovery of double helical structure(the twisted ladder structure) of DNA
using experimental data collected by Rosalind Franklin and Maurice
Wilkins.
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James
Watson Francis Crick
Maurice Wilkins Rosalind Franklin[3]
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DNA is a double stranded helix of nucleotides. It is a kind of
biological macromolecule made up of nucleotides. DNA is a long polymer. The
monomer units of DNA are nucleotides, and the polymer is known as a
"polynucleotide”. Each nucleotide consists of three components
• A Nitrogenous Base
• A five carbon sugar
• A phosphate group
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DNA :Helical Structure[5]
Purines and pyrimidines
There
are four different types of nucleotides found in DNA,differing only in the
nitrogenous base. Each nucleotide containing
one of four bases A, G, C, T.
Adenine
and guanine are known as Purines, thymine and cytosine are known as
pyrimidines.
Chargaff's rule
Chargaff's
rule states that total number of Purines in a DNA molecule is equal to
total number of pyrimidines.
The
decoding of DNA was considered as pearl of the science. It
was a blessing in the field of medical sciences but during that
period the scientific community has never imagined the possibilities of
computations using DNA which is a trend now - "Biocomputing ".
References
1. http://www.nature.com/scitable/nated/topicpage/discovery-of-dna-structure-and-function-watson-397.
2. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/photo51/images/befo-miescher.jpg.
3. http://undsci.berkeley.edu/article/0_0_0/dna_checklist
4. http://coloringpagesjos.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/299555-dna-strand.jpg
5. http://chemistry.tutorvista.com/biochemistry/deoxyribonucleic-acid.html
6. http://www.dnaftb.org/15/bio.html
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