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DNA, or deoxyribonucleic acid, is the coded set of instructions for making proteins and is located in the nucleus of cells. Each human cell contains about two meters of DNA, which when unraveled from all cells, could stretch from Earth to the Sun 100 times. The structure of DNA is a double helix made of nucleotides, with four nitrogen bases (A, T, C, G) that follow Chargaff's Rule of complementary base pairing.

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Copy of Introduction to DNA Notes

DNA, or deoxyribonucleic acid, is the coded set of instructions for making proteins and is located in the nucleus of cells. Each human cell contains about two meters of DNA, which when unraveled from all cells, could stretch from Earth to the Sun 100 times. The structure of DNA is a double helix made of nucleotides, with four nitrogen bases (A, T, C, G) that follow Chargaff's Rule of complementary base pairing.

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s.mya.irby
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Introduction to DNA - Mya Irby

What is DNA?

● DNA is short fordeoxyribonucleic acid

● a coded set of instructions for making proteins. In other words, it


provides the instructions necessary for building a living thing.
Where is DNA?
• DNA is located in the nucleus of each and every one of your cells (except red blood
cells)

• When DNA is floating around uncoiled it’s called chromatin

• When DNA coils up it’s called a chromosome


How Much DNA Do I Have?
• Every one of your cells has two meters of DNA if you stretched it out, uncoiled.
• Humans have (about) 100,000,000,000,000 cells (100 trillion)
• If you unraveled all your DNA from all your cells and lined it up end to end it would
stretch from the Earth to the Sun 100 times. (And the sun is about 98 million miles
away from Earth)
• If you bundled 25,000 strands of DNA together it would be the width of a human hair
• If you typed three billion letters in small font it would fill 200 pages

What is the Structure of DNA?


• DNA is a double helix, shaped like a twisted ladder
• made up of units called nucleotides
o Each nucleotide consists of:

▪ A five-carbon sugar (deoxyribose)

▪ A phosphate group

▪ A nitrogen base

• The sides, or backbones, of DNA consist of: sugar and phosphate groups
• The two strands of DNA are joined between the nitrogen bases by
hydrogen bonds

Four Nitrogen Bases of DNA

• Thymine (T)
• Adenine (A)
• Cytosine (C)
• Guanine (G)
Chargaff’s Rule
● Erwin Chargaff was an American biochemist.

● He observed nearly equal percentages of guanine and cytosine in any DNA sample.

● Chargaff’s Rule is:

o A -- T
o T -- A
o G -- C
o C -- G

● If A = 23%, then T = 23% (total 46%)

● And G = 27% and C = 27% (total 54%)

● These are called complementary base pairs

Nitrogen Base Pair Practice


1. 2.
T-

T-A
G-C
C-G
A-T
C-G
G-C
A-T
A-T
T-A
C-G
G-C

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