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DNA and ribonucleic acid (RNA) are nucleic acids. Alongside proteins, lipids and complex carbohydrates (polysaccharides), nucleic acids are one of the four major types of macromolecules that are essential for all known forms of life. The two DNA strands are known as polynucleotides as they are composed of simpler monomeric units called nucleotides.
In bacteria, the coding regions typically take up 88% of the genome. [1] The remaining 12% does not encode proteins, but much of it still has biological function through genes where the RNA transcript is functional (non-coding genes) and regulatory sequences, which means that almost all of the bacterial genome has a function. [1]
The two main classes of nucleic acids are deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and ribonucleic acid (RNA). If the sugar is ribose, the polymer is RNA; if the sugar is deoxyribose, a variant of ribose, the polymer is DNA. Nucleic acids are chemical compounds that are found in nature. They carry information in cells and make up genetic material.
nucleic acid The biopolymers, or small biomolecules, essential to all known forms of life . nucleic acid sequence A succession of letters that indicate the order of nucleotides forming alleles within a DNA or RNA molecule. nucleobase The nitrogen-containing biological compounds that form nucleosides, which in turn are components of nucleotides ...
The genetic code has 64 codons of which 3 function as termination codons: there are only 20 amino acids normally present in proteins. (There are two uncommon amino acids—selenocysteine and pyrrolysine—found in a limited number of proteins and encoded by the stop codons—TGA and TAG respectively.) The mismatch between the number of codons ...
Nucleic acids were first discovered in 1868 by Friedrich Miescher, [13] and by 1939, RNA had been implicated in protein synthesis. [14] Two decades later, Francis Crick predicted a functional RNA component which mediated translation; he reasoned that RNA is better suited to base-pair with an mRNA transcript than a pure polypeptide.
With some exceptions, [1] a three-nucleotide codon in a nucleic acid sequence specifies a single amino acid. The vast majority of genes are encoded with a single scheme (see the RNA codon table ). That scheme is often called the canonical or standard genetic code, or simply the genetic code, though variant codes (such as in mitochondria ) exist.
Nucleic acid structure refers to the structure of nucleic acids such as DNA and RNA. Chemically speaking, DNA and RNA are very similar. Chemically speaking, DNA and RNA are very similar. Nucleic acid structure is often divided into four different levels: primary, secondary, tertiary, and quaternary.