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The double-helix model of DNA structure was first published in the journal Nature by James Watson and Francis Crick in 1953, [6] (X,Y,Z coordinates in 1954 [7]) based on the work of Rosalind Franklin and her student Raymond Gosling, who took the crucial X-ray diffraction image of DNA labeled as "Photo 51", [8] [9] and Maurice Wilkins, Alexander Stokes, and Herbert Wilson, [10] and base-pairing ...
In biology, parts of the DNA double helix that need to separate easily, such as the TATAAT Pribnow box in some promoters, tend to have a high AT content, making the strands easier to pull apart. [29] In the laboratory, the strength of this interaction can be measured by finding the melting temperature T m necessary to break half of the hydrogen ...
The double helix is an important tertiary structure in nucleic acid molecules which is intimately connected with the molecule's secondary structure. A double helix is formed by regions of many consecutive base pairs. The nucleic acid double helix is a spiral polymer, usually right-handed, containing two nucleotide strands which base pair together.
Some of these structures were proposed during the 1950s before the structure of the double helix was solved, most famously by Linus Pauling. Non-helical or "side-by-side" models of DNA were proposed in the 1970s to address what appeared at the time to be problems with the topology of circular DNA chromosomes during replication (subsequently ...
From the very early stages of structural studies of DNA by X-ray diffraction and biochemical means, molecular models such as the Watson-Crick nucleic acid double helix model were successfully employed to solve the 'puzzle' of DNA structure, and also find how the latter relates to its key functions in living cells.
The double helix is the dominant tertiary structure for biological DNA, and is also a possible structure for RNA. Three DNA conformations are believed to be found in nature, A-DNA, B-DNA, and Z-DNA. The "B" form described by James D. Watson and Francis Crick is believed to predominate in cells. [2]
Z-DNA is one of the many possible double helical structures of DNA. It is a left-handed double helical structure in which the helix winds to the left in a zigzag pattern, instead of to the right, like the more common B-DNA form. Z-DNA is thought to be one of three biologically active double-helical structures along with A-DNA and B-DNA.
Other advances in molecular biology stemming from the discovery of the DNA double helix eventually led to ways to sequence genes. James Watson directed the Human Genome Project at the National Institutes of Health. [7] The ability to sequence and manipulate DNA is now central to the biotechnology industry and modern medicine.