Dna is what type of compound

Franklin herself was also investigating the structure of DNA, and it was her X-ray photograph, clearly showing the double helix structure of DNA, that greatly aided their work. She had yet to publish her findings when Watson and Crick obtained access to them, without her knowledge. The double helix model of DNA deoxyribonucleic acid consists of two intertwined strands. These strands are made up of nucleotides, which themselves consist of three component parts: a sugar group, a phosphate group, and a base.

There are four different bases that can potentially be attached to the sugar group: adenine, thymine, guanine and cytosine, given the designations A, T, G and C. The bases are what allows the two strands of DNA to hold together.

Strong intermolecular forces called hydrogen bonds between the bases on adjacent strands are responsible for this; because of the structures of the different bases, adenine A always forms hydrogen bonds with thymine T , whilst guanine G always forms hydrogen bonds with cytosine C. In human DNA, on average there are million base pairs in a single molecule — so many more than shown here!

The cells in your body constantly divide, regenerate, and die, but for this process to occur, the DNA within the cell must be able to replicate itself. In sexual reproduction, organisms inherit half of their nuclear DNA from the male parent and half from the female parent. However, organisms inherit all of their mitochondrial DNA from the female parent. This occurs because only egg cells, and not sperm cells, keep their mitochondria during fertilization.

DNA is made of chemical building blocks called nucleotides. These building blocks are made of three parts: a phosphate group, a sugar group and one of four types of nitrogen bases. To form a strand of DNA, nucleotides are linked into chains, with the phosphate and sugar groups alternating.

The four types of nitrogen bases found in nucleotides are: adenine A , thymine T , guanine G and cytosine C.

The order, or sequence, of these bases determines what biological instructions are contained in a strand of DNA. The complete DNA instruction book, or genome, for a human contains about 3 billion bases and about 20, genes on 23 pairs of chromosomes.

DNA contains the instructions needed for an organism to develop, survive and reproduce. To carry out these functions, DNA sequences must be converted into messages that can be used to produce proteins, which are the complex molecules that do most of the work in our bodies.

Each DNA sequence that contains instructions to make a protein is known as a gene. The size of a gene may vary greatly, ranging from about 1, bases to 1 million bases in humans. Genes only make up about 1 percent of the DNA sequence. Deoxyribonucleic acid DNA is a molecule that encodes an organism's genetic blueprint. In other words, DNA contains all of the information required to build and maintain an organism.

DNA was discovered in , when twenty-four-year-old Swiss physician Friedrich Miescher isolated a compound from the nuclei of white blood cells. This compound was neither a protein nor a lipid nor a carbohydrate, so it was therefore a novel type of biological molecule.

Miescher named his discovery "nuclein," because he had isolated it from the nuclei of cells. Today, this molecule is called DNA. Nearly all of the cells within a single organism include exactly the same DNA. DNA is the chemical name for the molecule that carries genetic instructions in all living things.

The DNA molecule consists of two strands that wind around one another to form a shape known as a double helix. Each strand has a backbone made of alternating sugar deoxyribose and phosphate groups.

Attached to each sugar is one of four bases--adenine A , cytosine C , guanine G , and thymine T. The two strands are held together by bonds between the bases; adenine bonds with thymine, and cytosine bonds with guanine. The sequence of the bases along the backbones serves as instructions for assembling protein and RNA molecules.