DNA

Stephanie Yu

DNA helps us investigate living things. The variation in living things we see around us is due to DNA, but DNA is not the only factor that affects the variety of Earth’s organisms. Different environments and mankind evolve also advocate our life effectively. We can not live without DNA just like fish can not live in water. Now let’s introduce the structure and function of DNA.

DNA which is scientifically called deoxyribonucleic acid, is the hereditary material in humans and almost all other organisms. A double-stranded nucleic acid that stores genetic information. Difference in DNA results in variations in characteristics and allows organisms to exist in diverse aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. Almost every cell in a human's body has the identical DNA. DNA is located in the nucleus of a cell which is called the “control center”. But there is a small amount of DNA located in Mitochondria that is called Mitochondrial DNA or mtDNA. You might think what is Mitochondria? This is a part of our cell and it produces energy and protein.

DNA is made of many nucleotides linked in a specific order. Nucleotides are the basic building blocks of DNA and RNA( Nucleic

acid). RNA is made by DNA and it is also stored in our body cells. Nucleotides consist of three components: A phosphate group, a sugar, and a nitrogen base. That is why biology and chemistry are comparative. Nitrogen bases in DNA involve: adenine(A), cytosine(C), guanine(G), thymine(T). Nitrogen bases that pair together are complementary bases which are matched with G-C-A-T. The bases of the nucleotides pair only in specific ways. There is an analogy to describe base pairs. Such as: cell phone codes or lock codes.

A DNA molecule is made of two strands of nucleotides, twisted ladder structure. The sides of the ladder are made up of phosphate group and sugar. The rung of the ladder is made of two nitrogenous bases held together by hydrogen bonds.

DNA which is an essential part of our life, like the basement of the human body. We can use DNA to store genetic information and scientific laboratories. DNA is the foundation of the unity and diversity of living things and DNA mutations produce genetic diversity within a population, they can occur during DNA replication. DNA technology has many uses.

Cloning is one of them which is a process that produces identical copies of genes, cells, or organisms. Those are the brief introduction of DNA.