Nucleic acid

From the inner workings of the cell to the young of a living thing, they contain and provide information via the nucleic acid sequence.

Strings of nucleotides are bonded to form spiraling backbones and assembled into chains of bases or base-pairs selected from the five primary, or canonical, nucleobases.

Using amino acids and protein synthesis,[2] the specific sequence in DNA of these nucleobase-pairs helps to keep and send coded instructions as genes.

In RNA, base-pair sequencing helps to make new proteins that determine most chemical processes of all life forms.

In 1889 Richard Altmann created the term nucleic acid – at that time DNA and RNA were not differentiated.

[9] Experimental studies of nucleic acids constitute a major part of modern biological and medical research, and form a foundation for genome and forensic science, and the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries.

[10][11][12] The term nucleic acid is the overall name for DNA and RNA, members of a family of biopolymers,[13] and is a type of polynucleotide.

[15] The basic component of biological nucleic acids is the nucleotide, each of which contains a pentose sugar (ribose or deoxyribose), a phosphate group, and a nucleobase.

[16] Nucleic acids are also generated within the laboratory, through the use of enzymes[17] (DNA and RNA polymerases) and by solid-phase chemical synthesis.

[citation needed] The sugars and phosphates in nucleic acids are connected to each other in an alternating chain (sugar-phosphate backbone) through phosphodiester linkages.

[24] In contrast, single-stranded RNA and DNA molecules are not constrained to a regular double helix, and can adopt highly complex three-dimensional structures that are based on short stretches of intramolecular base-paired sequences including both Watson-Crick and noncanonical base pairs, and a wide range of complex tertiary interactions.

Nucleotide sequences are of great importance in biology since they carry the ultimate instructions that encode all biological molecules, molecular assemblies, subcellular and cellular structures, organs, and organisms, and directly enable cognition, memory, and behavior.

Enormous efforts have gone into the development of experimental methods to determine the nucleotide sequence of biological DNA and RNA molecules,[27][28] and today hundreds of millions of nucleotides are sequenced daily at genome centers and smaller laboratories worldwide.

In addition to maintaining the GenBank nucleic acid sequence database, the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) provides analysis and retrieval resources for the data in GenBank and other biological data made available through the NCBI web site.

DNA consists of two long polymers of monomer units called nucleotides, with backbones made of sugars and phosphate groups joined by ester bonds.

The code is read by copying stretches of DNA into the related nucleic acid RNA in a process called transcription.

Transfer RNA serves as the carrier molecule for amino acids to be used in protein synthesis, and is responsible for decoding the mRNA.