DNA Remember it is made of a sugar, a phosphate, and a 

nitrogenous base.

Difference in Sugars
Bases and Bonds
Pair Bonds to Double Helix
DNA
3-D Structure
 Rosalind Franklin
 Used X-ray diffraction analyses to look at shape of DNA
 Suggested DNA was a helix, corkscrew shape
 About 2nm thick and a complete helical turn every 3.4 nm
Watson & Crick’s Double Helix
 Watson & Crick created a model that represents DNA

 Double helix, Bases bonding inward forming base pairs

 H bonds form stable antiparallel strands ( 3’-5’ and 5’-3’)

 Adenine forms 2 H bonds with thymine

 Guanine forms 3 H bonds cytosine

Notice that a double-ringed purine is always bonded to a single
ring pyrimidine.
Purines are Adenine (A) and Guanine (G).
Pyrimidines are Cytosine (C) and Thymine (T).
The bases are complementary, with A on one side of the molecule
you only get T on the other side, similarly with G and C
DNA molecule consists of two long polynucleotide chains
composed of four types of nucleotide subunits.

Each of these chains is known as a DNA chain, or a DNA

strand. Hydrogen bonds between the base portions of the
nucleotides hold the two chains together.

nucleotides are composed of a five-carbon sugar to which are

attached one or more phosphate groups and a nitrogen-
containing base.
In the case of the nucleotides in DNA, the sugar is
deoxyribose attached to a single phosphate group (hence the
name deoxyribonucleic acid), and the base may be either
adenine (A), cytosine (C), guanine (G), or thymine (T).

In the case of the nucleotides in DNA, the sugar is

deoxyribose attached to a single phosphate group (hence the
name deoxyribonucleic acid), and the base may be either
adenine (A), cytosine (C), guanine (G), or thymine (T).
The nucleotides are covalently linked together in a chain
through the sugars and phosphates, which thus form a
“backbone” of alternating sugar-phosphate-sugar-phosphate.
only the base differs in each of the four types of subunits.

These same symbols (A, C, G, and T) are also used to denote

the four different nucleotides—that is, the bases with their
attached sugar and phosphate groups.
1. Conservative replication
produce an entirely new DNA strand during
replication.
2. Semiconservative replication
would produce two DNA molecules, each of which was composed of
one-half of the parental DNA along with an entirely new complementary
strand.
3. Dispersive replication
involved the breaking of the parental strands during
replication, and somehow, a reassembly of molecules that were
a mix of old and new fragments on each strand of DNA.
DNA replication
1. involves a great many building blocks; enzymes and a
great deal of ATP energy
2. Only occurring in a cell once per (cell) generation, DNA
replication in humans occurs at a rate of 50 nucleotides
per second, 500/second in prokaryotes.
3. Nucleotides have to be assembled and available in the
nucleus, along with energy to make bonds between
nucleotides.
DNA Replication: Step by Step
In E. coli:
The origin of replication is located at a gene
named oriC.
The gene is about 245bp long, and is recognized
and bound by special initiator proteins.
 Initiator proteins

 a. "snip" open the DNA helix at the hydrogen bonds,

separating the double helix at the base-pairing
"ladder".
b. promote the attachment of enzymes known as
primosomes.
 A primosome is a two-protein complex consisting of

 a. primase: a type of RNA polymerase that constructs

RNA primers
b. DNA helicase: an enzyme that unwinds the DNA at
the Y junction and moves the holoenzyme
(i.e., the fully assembled primase + helicase) along the
strand.
Steps of DNA replication
1. DNA polymerases unzip the helix by breaking the H-bonds
between bases. Once the polymerases have opened the
molecule, an area known as the replication bubble forms
2. DNA polymerase III starts adding new nucleotides in the
fork and link to the corresponding parental nucleotide (A
with T, C with G) to one strand from 5' end to 3' end i.e. in
the direction of movement of the replication fork. This
strand is called the leading strand.
❑ The other strand has to form from 5' end to 3' end too.
1. The enzyme primase adds a piece of RNA called RNA prime to
which DNA polymerase adds a piece of DNA from 5' to 3' end.
2. As DNA unwinds further, the leading strand grows directly while
the lagging strand forms in pieces called Okazaki fragments.
3. The enzyme DNA polymerase I then replaces RNS primes by
DNA and DNA ligase links Okazaki fragments.
4. Prokaryotes open a single replication bubble, while eukaryotes
have multiple bubbles. The entire length of the DNA molecule is
replicated as the bubbles meet
Since the DNA strands are antiparallel, and replication
proceeds in the 5' to 3' direction on EACH strand, one strand
will form a continuous copy, while the other will form a series
of short Okazaki fragments.