QUESTIONS ON NUCLEIC ACIDS AND PROTEIN SYNTHESIS

(answers)

1. What enables cells to have different forms and perform different functions?

2. What is the primary function of DNA?

3. What role do proteins have in a cell?

4. What is the basic unit of DNA and how are these units arranged?

5. What are the three parts of a nucleotide?

6. What are the four possible nitrogen bases found in DNA and what are their abbreviations?

7. Which nitrogen bases are purines and which are pyrimidines and what is the difference between them?

8. Which scientists proposed the Double Helix structure for DNA and when?

9. What is the backbone of the DNA structure?

10. How are the nitrogen bases connected to the backbone and how are they connected to each other?

11. What is meant by complementary base pairing?

12. What is meant by DNA replication?

13. What basically occurs in DNA replication?

14. What is a replication fork?

15. What is it that DNA helicases do?

16. What do the DNA polymerases do?

17. What is the foundation for accurate DNA replication?

18. How does DNA replication proceed?

19. What is the final product of the DNA replication?

20. How accurate is DNA replication?

21. What do we call a change in the nucleotide sequence?

22. What do we have to handle changes in the nucleotide sequence?

23. What can damage DNA, causing changes in the nucleotide sequence?

24. What is RNA primarily responsible for?

25. What is the basic unit of RNA?

26. What are two differences chemically between RNA and DNA?

27. What are the three types of RNA and their functions

28. What is “transcription”?

29. What is the primary transcription enzyme and what does it do?

30. What is a promoter?

31. What is a “template”?

32. What is it that determines the nucleotide sequence of the newly forming RNA molecule?

33. What nitrogen base takes the place of thymine in the newly forming RNA molecule?

34. What is it that ends the RNA transcription?

35. What is it that releases the newly formed RNA molecule when transcription is finished?

36. What are the products of transcription and what may happen to them in eukaryotes?

37. What are the basic units of proteins and how many kinds of these basic units are there?

38. What is it that determines the function of a protein?

39. What is the genetic code?

40. What is a codon, what does it code for, and how many are there?

41. What is the “start” codon and what is a “stop” codon?

42. What idea does the near universality of the genetic code support?

43. What is “translation” and when does it begin?

44. What is the actual site in the cell of protein synthesis?

45. What is that brings the amino acids to the site of protein synthesis?

46. What is an anticodon and what is its function?

47. What is it that ensures that amino acids are added in the correct sequence as prescribed by the mRNA transcript?

48. What are ribosomes composed of and where are they found?

49. What is the relationship between where a ribosome is found and the type of protein it produces?

50. Describe the three binding sites found on the ribosome and their functions.

51. What amino acid does the start codon code for and does every protein then begin with this amino acid?

52. What brings translation to an end?

53. Can more than one ribosome translate the same mRNA transcript?