For my biology class we were given scenarios to adress and one of the ones I pic
ID: 47445 • Letter: F
Question
For my biology class we were given scenarios to adress and one of the ones I picked was " If the genetic material of all life on earth consist of DNA with twelve nitrogenous bases rather then four."
I'm suppose to come up with a paragraph and talk about how this would change the biology within our bodies and some of the suggested topics to adress were Energy, DNA, Metabolism, Proteins, and Regulation. I don't have to give a respose to all and I have my own opinions but I'm looking for more ideas.
Explanation / Answer
The deoxyribonucleic acid or DNA contains four nitrogen bases - Adenine, Guanine, Cytosine and thymine. There are analogs of these bases which might be incorporated while replication but are eliminated through proof reading. In RNA thymine is absent and instead uracil is present. There is no other alternative for these 4 bases and if at all any new base is present in the DNA it would be resulting in a genetic disorder.
If all DNA genetic material of all life on earth consist of DNA with 12 nitrogenous bases rather than 4, the 12 bases must be repeating units of the four bases. This means 12 bases contain 3 adenine, 3 guanine, 3 cytosine and 3 thymine and as usually adenine pairs with thymine by 2 hydrogen bonds and guanine pairs with cytosine by 3 hydrogen bonds. The 12 nitrogen bases result in 6 pairs - 3 A-T base pairs (6 bases) and 3 G- C base pairs (6 bases).
The G-C base pairs posess more energy on hydrolysis rather than A - T base pairs. These bases are complementarily encoded in the mRNA.and the codons of mRNA code for amino acids normally and result in a normal protein molecule. The proteins are synthesized when necessary or protein synthesis is stopped when proteins are not required.
It is possible to have repeatingly to have these 4 nitrogen bases but impossible to have 12 different nitrogen bases because they cannot be transcribed to mRNA and the amino acid sequence of proteins are formed based on the codons and eac amino acidsparticularly coded by a set of codons and the genetic code is universal. The 12 different nitrogen bases cannot be transcribed and traslated thus proteins are not formed and if proteins are not synthesized there is no possibility for regulation.
Related Questions
Navigate
Integrity-first tutoring: explanations and feedback only — we do not complete graded work. Learn more.