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Why Dna Is Important To Cells

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DNA or Deoxyribonucleic Acid is very important to cells. DNA is considered the code and each code gives directions to protein molecules. What exactly is DNA though? DNA is a nucleic acid macromolecule with a double helix structure. The parts of DNA are nucleotides, nitrogenous bases, and then the hydrogen bonding. The nucleotides are made of a carbon sugar, a nitrogenous base, and a phosphate group. The nucleotides are held together by covalent bonds made up of sugar. The nucleotides stick sideways on the side of the chain. The nitrogenous bases are bases mainly containing nitrogen and containing adenine, guanine, cytosine, and thymine. Nitrogenous bases are labeled with the letters, A, D, C, and T. These nitrogenous bases stick out sideways of the chain. Once these two parts are created the nitrogenous base ends and the nucleotide ends create a ladder. The hydrogen …show more content…

Each base on a strand of a molecule has the ability to form a hydrogen bond. When bases pair It must follow an order. GC, AT, TA, and CG. Bases cannot mix. If a cell wants to divide it will copy its DNA in the replication process and then separate into two strands. The DNA will separate into two strands using an enzyme to break the hydrogen bonds. Then the enzyme polymerase joins nucleotides together to form a new strand of DNA. The polymerase then checks over its work to make sure it is correct.
Transcription is used to base pair a strand of complementary mRNA from a section of DNA. This stage uses an enzyme called RNA polymerase very similar in function to DNA polymerase. First RNA polymerase will bind a DNA molecule and separate its two strands. One strand of this DNA will be template to create nucleotides in a complementary mRNA strand. Specific parts of the DNA or promoters will tell RNA polymerase where it should begin transcribing a section of mRNA. Other promoters on the DNA signal that the mRNA is complete and transcription

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