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Experiments:
Avery
-basically a follow-up to Griffith’s experiment – experimental demonstration that
DNA is the substance that causes bacterial transformation
-isolated active portion of virulent pneumococcus and tested it
-found that enzymes that break apart RNA and protein had no effect on it, but
enzyme that breaks apart DNA destroyed extract’s transforming power
-double helix
DNA replication
-replication of a DNA molecule starts at particular sites called origins of replication
– these are short stretches of DNA having a specific sequence of nucleotides
-proteins that initiate DNA replication recognize this sequence and attach to the
DNA, separating the two strands and opening up a replication bubble
-at the end of each replication bubble is a replication fork: Y-shaped region
where parental strands of DNA are being unwound
-several proteins participate in unwinding:
-helicases are enzymes that untwist the double helix at the replication forks,
separating the two parental strands and making them available as template strands
-after parental strands separate, single-strand binding proteins bind to the
unpaired DNA strands, keeping them from re-pairing
-the untwisting of the double helix causes tighter twisting and strain ahead of
the replication fork; topoisomerase helps relieve the strain by breaking, swiveling,
and rejoining DNA strands
-then, the unwound sections of parental DNA strands are available to serve as
templates for the synthesis of new complimentary DNA strands:
-the initial nucleotide chain produced during DNA synthesis is actually a
short stretch of RNA; the RNA chain is called a primer and is synthesized by the
enzyme primase
-primase starts a complementary RNA chain from a single RNA
nucleotide, adding RNA nucleotides one at a time, using the parental DNA strand as
a template; thus the completed primer (~5-10 nt long) is base-paired to the
template strand. New DNA strand will start from 3’ end of RNA primer
-DNA polymerases (enzymes) catalyze synthesis of new DNA by adding
nucleotides to a preexisting chain
Chromatin
-complex of DNA and protein – tightly packed into the nucleus
-so there’s the double helix of DNA
-then you’ve got these proteins called histones, which are responsible for the first
level of DNA packing in chromatin
-nucleosomes – DNA + histone proteins
Telomeres