DNA Structure

History of DNA Discovery

• In 1868, Meischer
first isolated
deoxyribonucleic
acid from cells in
pus and from fish
sperm.

• No one knew DNA’s

function.
 History of DNA Discovery
• In 1928, Griffith was working with smooth
(S, virulent) and rough (R, non-virulent)
strains of a pneumonia-causing bacterium.
• He performed four experiments

Some substance from the S cells

had changed the R cells and made them virulent.
Was it proteins or nucleic acid??
In 1944, Avery
showed that
the substance
was DNA.
Hershey and
Chase
confirmed that
DNA is the
hereditary
material
(not protein).
DNA Structure
 Yo
Components of DNA
u are
req
ire u
• DNA is composed d t of four
ok
no
kinds of nucleotides,w each
thi
ss
of which consists of tru
ctu
re

– a five carbon sugar

(deoxyribose)

– a phosphate group (PO4-)

– one of four bases – adenine

(A), guanine (G), thymine
(T), or cytosine (C)
The nucleotides are
similar, but

– T and C are single

ringed pyrimidines
Helpful hint: Thymine and
cytosine are pyrimidines

– A and G are double

ringed purines.
 Edwin Chargaff, in 1949,
noted two critical bits of data
• The four kinds of nucleotide bases making
up a DNA molecule differ in relative
amounts from species to species
The amount of A = T, and the amount of C = G.
 Rosalind Franklin used x-ray diffraction
techniques to produce images of DNA molecules.

• She concluded:
– DNA exists as a long,
thin molecule of
uniform diameter

– The structure is highly

repetitive

– DNA is helical
 Watson and Crick used numerous
sources of data to build models of DNA.
 The following features were
incorporated into their model
• The bases were
hydrogen bonded (a
weak bond) together in
the center of the helix

– T (a pyrimidine) had two

hydrogen bonds with A (a
purine)

– C (a pyrimidine) had three

hydrogen bonds with G (a
purine)
• The backbone was

5’
C
made of chains of

ar
bo
deoxyribose sugar

n
covalently bonded (a

Co
strong bond) to

va
enl
phosphate groups.

tB
on
3’ C

d
arb
• The phosphate group on
is bonded to the 3’
carbon of one
deoxyribose, and the Co
val
5’ carbon of another. en
tB
on
d
• Each sugar of
the backbone is
covalently
bonded to the
Co
nitrogenous val
e nt
Bo
base off of nd

carbon 1.
1’ C
arb
on
There are 10
base pairs
per turn of
the helix.
• The two sides are anti-parallel,
meaning that the sugar and
phosphates are running in
opposite directions.

• Each side ends in a phosphate

(5’ end) and a sugar (3’ end)

• Since the sides are anti-parallel,

one side goes in the 3' to 5'
direction, and the other goes in
the 5' to 3' direction.
The base pairing is constant for all species,
but the sequence of base pairs in a
nucleotide strand is different from one
species to the next.

These are all the

genomes that
have been
sequenced to date
 Where is DNA located?
• Prokaryotes
(bacteria and
Archaea)

– Circular DNA in
a region called
the nucleoid

– Plasmid
 Where is DNA located?
• Eukaryotes
– Inside the
nucleus

• Linear

• Highly coiled
• A set of eight
proteins called
histones act as
spools to wind the
DNA into units
called
nucleosomes

• Nucleosomes form
a beaded chain and
form additional
loops to make up a
chromosome
• Inside mitochondria
and chloroplasts

– Circular

– “Naked” – not
associated with
protein
• Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is passed only from
mother to offspring (sperm don’t have mitochondria)
Double Helix Orientation