Intro to Nucleic Acids - Video Tutorials & Practice Problems
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Intro to Nucleic Acids Concept 1
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Hey, everyone. So before we talk about nucleic acids, it's first important to talk about what is a nucleotide. Now, a nucleotide represents a monomer or single unit of a nucleic acid. Now, here a nucleic acid is just a polymer of nucleotides that store and encode genetic information. And we talk about nucleotides. We're gonna say there are two types. We have DNA and we have RN A DNA represents deoxyribonucleic acid. And RN A represents ribonucleic acid with DNA. We're gonna say that we are storing, it stores genetic information of cellular organisms. We're gonna say RN A, it while it transfers this genetic information from DNA in order to create proteins. Later on. Now, here we said that these are two types of nucleotides. It's important to talk about the components of a said nucleotide. Now, here, before we can talk about a nuclear tie, we need to talk about its precursor, which is the nuclear side. A nucleotide consists of two things. It consists of a pentose sugar. And in a troy base, if we take a look here at this structure before the air on the left side of the arrow, we have our PTO sugar and we have our non charging in space. So this is a nucleo side, a nucleotide consists of this nucleotide plus a phosphate group. So as we follow the arrow towards the right side, we've attached a phosphate group to our equation here. So a nucleotide, its three components are a phosphate group, a pento sugar and nitrogenous space. So just remember these key terms when we're talking about nucleotides, nucleo sides and nucleic acids overall.
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Intro to Nucleic Acids Concept 2
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In this video, we'll talk about R A nucleotides versus DNA nucleotides. Now, here we're going to say that our pentose sugar in RN A is ribose and when it's DNA, it's two deoxyribose. Now, here is important, important terminology when we say deoxy, deoxy just means without oxygen. So if we take a look at the image on the left side, we're gonna say that this here will represent our RN A nucleotide. We're gonna say here that our RN A nucleotide has a phosphate group. It has its pentose ring and it has its nitrogenous space. Remember those three components make up a nucleotide here though because it's R A, the pentose ring is a ribose sugar because it's a ribo sugar. It has an oh group right here when we talk about DNA. So here we're looking at the DNA nucleotide. It's a nuclear title. It still has the three components that make it up, which is a phosphate group. A ring, a penthos ring as well as a nitrogenous space. But because it's DNA involved, we're not gonna have an oh here, we're gonna have just an H we've lost in oxygen. So that's why we're gonna call this a deoxy ribose sugar, right? So just remember these are the key differences between DNA and RN A.
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Intro to Nucleic Acids
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In this example question, it says select the correct statement describing nucleotides. Here, the sugar in DNA has an extra oh group than the sugar. And RN A. No, remember deoxyribose sugar is indicative of DNA. That means we've lost in oxygen. So we wouldn't have an extra oh group. All nucleotides contain a nitrogenous space. This is true. Remember, nucleotides have three components. A phosphate group are pentose ring as well as a nitrogenous space. So this is true here, the sugar and DNA contains one less carbonel group than the sugar and RN A. So remember what's the difference between RN A and DNA? We have one less oxygen in DNA. That's why it's deoxyribose sugar involved. Here. All nucleotides containing ribo sugar. This is not true. DNA represents a sugar or it represents a nucleotide actually. And DNA does not have a ribo sugar. It has a deoxyribose sugar because it has one less oxygen. So here, the only statement that's true is option B, all nucleotides contain a nitrogenous space.
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