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    Salient Features of Double-Helix Structure of DNA MCQ - Practice Questions with Answers

    Edited By admin | Updated on Sep 18, 2023 18:34 AM | #NEET

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    • Salient Features of Double-Helix Structure of DNA is considered one of the most asked concept.

    • 30 Questions around this concept.

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     The two antiparallel strands in a DNA double helix are held together by :
     

    The fact that a purine base is always paired through hydrogen bonds with a pyrimidine base leads to, in the DNA double helix

    A single strand of nucleic acid tagged with a radioactive molecule is called:

    Concepts Covered - 1

    Salient Features of Double-Helix Structure of DNA
    • It is made of two polynucleotide chains, where the backbone is constituted by sugar-phosphate, and the bases project inside.
    • The two chains have antiparallel polarity. It means if one the chain has a polarity of 5'-3', the other has 3'-5'.
    • The bases in two strands are paired through hydrogen bond (H-bonds) forming base pairs (bp). 
    • Adenine forms two hydrogen bonds with Thymine from the opposite strand and vice-versa.
    • Similarly, Guanine is bonded with Cytosine with three H-bonds.
    • As a result, always a purine comes opposite to a pyrimidine. 
    • This generates approximately uniform distance between the two strands of the helix. 
    • The two chains are coiled in a right-handed fashion. 
    • The pitch of the helix is 3.4 nm (a nanometre is one-billionth of a metre, that is 10-9 m) and there is roughly 10 bp in each turn.
    • The distance between a bp in a helix is approximately equal to 0.34 nm.
    • The plane of one base pair stacks over the other in the double helix. This, in addition to H-bonds, confers stability of the helical structure.

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    Salient Features of Double-Helix Structure of DNA

    Biology Textbook for Class XII

    Page No. : 97

    Line : 30

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