DNA is Deoxyribonucleic acid (D - oxy - rybo - nuke - layic acid) . The Structure of DNA has several parts. DNA is made up of molecules called nucleotides. Nucleotides are the base of your DNA structure. Nucleotides are made up of three things: 1. Carbon Sugar Molecule or deoxyribose 2. A phosphate group 3. One of four nitrogen bases. The four nitrogen bases adenine (A), thymine (T), cytosine (C), and guanine (G). These make up the double helix. The double helix has 2 strands that form a spiral shape. If you are to looking at the image below the DNA structure looks like a twisted Fritos. When finding out what nucleotides are. Remember if one nucleotide has an adenine base the only match it has is thymine. The same goes for guanine, the only match it has is …show more content…
These bonded nitrogenous bases are called base pairs. The different sequences of these base pairs make you. Now RNA structure is like DNA, but instead of deoxyribose, it has ribose. Then it has nucleotides just like DNA, but instead of thymine there is uracil. Also, RNA has a single helix which means there is 1 strand that forms a spiral shape. If you look close enough at the image on the right, you can see that the single helix looks like a spiral staircase. It’s good to know when dealing with base pairs there is an enzyme called a helicase. A helicase slices through those base pairs to get individual sections. You could say a helicase is like a zipper when unzipping your jacket. These sections can be used to make two new strands. The two new strands come from the polymerase. Unlike the helicase, polymerase adds nucleotides to the individual strands and you can see that in the image to the right. The functions of DNA are to store genetic material and to replicate itself when dividing. A code of the genetic material is a codon. The functions of RNA are within the 3 types of RNA, mRNA, rRNA,