KEY CONCEPTS

Nucleic Acids

• The central dogma of molecular biology is that DNA is transcribed to RNA, which is translated to
protein.
• Nucleotides, consisting of a nitrogenous base, a five-carbon sugar, and phosphate, are the
monomeric units of the nucleic acids, DNA and RNA (see Chapter 5).
• DNA contains the sugar 2′-deoxyribose; RNA contains ribose.
• DNA and RNA contain the purine bases adenine (A) and guanine (G).
• DNA contains the pyrimidine bases cytosine (C) and thymine (T), whereas RNA contains C and
uracil (U).
• DNA and RNA are linear sequences of nucleotides linked by phosphodiester bonds between the
3′-sugar of one nucleotide and the 5′-sugar of the next nucleotide.
• Genetic information is encoded by the sequence of the nucleotide bases in DNA.
• DNA is double stranded; one strand runs in the 5′-to-3′ direction, whereas the other is
antiparallel and runs in the 3′-to-5′ direction.
• The two strands of DNA wrap about each other to form a double helix and are held together by
hydrogen bonding between bases in each strand and hydrophobic interactions between the
stacked bases in the core of the molecule.
• The base adenine hydrogen bonds to thymine, whereas cytosine hydrogen bonds to guanine.
• Transcription of a gene generates a single-stranded RNA; the three major types of RNA are
mRNA, rRNA, and tRNA.
• Eukaryotic mRNA is modified at both the 5′- and 3′-ends. In between, it contains a coding region
for the synthesis of a protein.
• Codons within the coding region dictate the sequence of amino acids in a protein. Each codon is
three nucleotides long.
• rRNA and tRNA are required for protein synthesis.
o rRNA is complexed with proteins to form ribonucleoprotein particles called ribosomes,
which bind mRNA and tRNAs during translation.
o The tRNA contains an anticodon that binds to a complementary codon on mRNA,
ensuring insertion of the correct amino acid into the protein being synthesized.