Nucleic acid structure

Nucleotides have 3 components

I. Pentose
II. Nitrogenous base
III. Phosphate
Without phosphate called nucleoside

I. Nitrogenous base
derivatives of two parent compounds,
pyrimidine and purine
Nucleic Acid Structure

• DNA Molecules Have Distinctive Base Compositions

Chargaff made some assumptions
1. The base composition varies from one organism to other
2. DNA collected from different tissues of the same specimen contains same base composition
3. Base composition of a given specimen do not change with age, nutritional state or changing environment
4. In all cellular DNAs the A=T and C=G and A+C=T+G
DNA Is a Double Helix
• Rosalind Franklin and Maurice Wilkins They showed in the early 1950s
that DNA produces a characteristic x-ray diffraction pattern
• In 1953 Watson and Crick postulated a threedimensionamodel of DNA
structure’