BIOC 300B Chapter Notes - Chapter 4: Van Der Waals Force, Peptide, Phosphodiester Bond
Document Summary
One phosphate (sugars linked through phosphates = phosphodiester backbone at 3" hydroxyl group) One base (linked bases carry the genetic information) Dna and rna: long linear polymers (monomers = nucleotides) called nucleic acids that carry out information in a form that can be passed from one generation to the next. The sequence of bases in the polymer uniquely characterizes a nucleic acid and constitutes a form of linear information. Dna is not a direct template, but is copied into mrna (intermediates to protein synthesis) Genes: specify the kinds of proteins made by cells. Codon: sequence of 3 bases, speci es an amino acid. Phosphodiester bridge: negatively charged; repels nucleophilic species like hydroxide ions (which will attack the phosphodiester backbone via hydrolysis maintaining the integrity of nucleic acids) Both are transcribed before translation and introns are cut out to leave mature rna with continuous exons. Their existence is crucial to understanding the evolution of proteins.