nucleic acid

DNA, or deoxyribonucleic acid, is the central information storage system of most animals and plants, and even some viruses. The name comes from its structure, which is a sugar and phosphate backbone which have bases sticking out from it–so-called bases.

Deoxyribonucleic acid, more commonly known as DNA, is a complex molecule that contains all of the information necessary to build and maintain an organism. However, DNA does more than specify the structure and function of living things — it also serves as the primary unit of heredity in organisms of all types.

DNA is made of chemical building blocks called nucleotides. These building blocks are made of three parts: a phosphate group, a sugar group and one of four types of nitrogen bases. To form a strand of DNA, nucleotides are linked into chains, with the phosphate and sugar groups alternating.

There are three different DNA types:

• A-DNA: It is a right-handed double helix similar to the B-DNA form.
• B-DNA: This is the most common DNA conformation and is a right-handed helix.
• Z-DNA: Z-DNA is a left-handed DNA where the double helix winds to the left in a zig-zag pattern.

DNA is made up of six smaller molecules — a five carbon sugar called deoxyribose, a phosphate molecule and four different nitrogenous bases (adenine, thymine, cytosine and guanine).

double helix

Chemically speaking, DNA and RNA are very similar. Nucleic acid structure is often divided into four different levels: primary, secondary, tertiary, and quaternary.

DNA base pair. Under normal circumstances, the nitrogen-containing bases adenine (A) and thymine (T) pair together, and cytosine (C) and guanine (G) pair together. The binding of these base pairs forms the structure of DNA .

Nucleotide

The instructions in a gene that tell the cell how to make a specific protein. A, C, G, and T are the “letters” of the DNA code; they stand for the chemicals adenine (A), cytosine (C), guanine (G), and thymine (T), respectively, that make up the nucleotide bases of DNA.

The human genome contains approximately 3 billion of these base pairs, which reside in the 23 pairs of chromosomes within the nucleus of all our cells.

​Uracil. Uracil (U) is one of four chemical bases that are part of RNA. In DNA, the base thymine (T) is used in place of uracil.

46 DNA molecules

DNA (deoxyribose nucleic acid), discovered in 1869 by Friedrich Miescher, is composed of four bases (guanine, cytosine, adenine, thymine). The bases are connected to a sugar (deoxyribose), and sugars are interconnected through phosphate linkages to form a long, unbranched chain.

An example of DNA is the chain of basic materials in the chromosomes of the human cell. In 1953, James D. Watson and Francis Crick proposed the idea that the DNA’s structure was a double-helix. It was not until scientists used x-ray technology that they were to finally able to see the structure of a DNA molecule.

DNA polymerase is responsible for the process of DNA replication, during which a double-stranded DNA molecule is copied into two identical DNA molecules. Scientists have taken advantage of the power of DNA polymerase molecules to copy DNA molecules in test tubes via polymerase chain reaction, also known as PCR.

A human cell contains about 6 pg of DNA.

Likewise, the amount of human DNA in each diploid cell is actually (1.2×1010) x (3×1012) ≅ 3.6×1022 DNA base pairs in the human body….Am I Man Or Am I A Microbe?

Blood of a healthy individual usually contains 4–7 x 106 leucocytes per milliliter blood. This means that the DNA content can vary between 30 and 40 µg/ml blood depending on the donor.

So the egg and sperm cell each have one full copy of a genome! When the egg and sperm come together at conception, the two genomes combine. This is why we ultimately have two genomes in each cell.

The human egg cell is an exception, it’s actually the biggest cell in the body and can be seen without a microscope. That’s pretty impressive. Compared to the other human cells, egg cells are huge. They are 100 microns in diameter (that’s a millionth of a metre) and are about as wide of a strand of hair.

The resounding answer is yes. Because the baby’s DNA will only come from the egg donor and the sperm provider, many women using egg donation worry that they will not share any genetic information with their child.

At birth, there are approximately 1 million eggs; and by the time of puberty, only about 300,000 remain. Of these, only 300 to 400 will be ovulated during a woman’s reproductive lifetime.

Are female babies born with eggs? Yes, female babies are born with all the egg cells they’re ever going to have. No new egg cells are made during your lifetime.

The eggs are super tiny — too small to see with the naked eye. During your menstrual cycle, hormones make the eggs in your ovaries mature — when an egg is mature, that means it’s ready to be fertilized by a sperm cell. These hormones also make the lining of your uterus thick and spongy.

Some women feel like blood is just “gushing out” of them, or they might find the sensation very unpleasant. Some feel most comfortable if they stay at home on particularly heavy days.

If pregnancy does not occur, the egg and the lining of the uterus are expelled through menstruation and the ovulation process occurs again. The follicular phase is the first part of the ovulation cycle. This phase starts the first day of the last menstrual period (LMP) and continues to ovulation.

So, why do women have periods? As a woman, your period is your body’s way of releasing tissue that it no longer needs. Every month, your body prepares for pregnancy. The lining of your uterus gets thicker as preparation for nurturing a fertilized egg.