BIOL 200 - Linear Biopolymers

Informational Biopolymers

Have more than one kind of monomer

Characteristic and common elements

Common - Shared by all monomers

Characteristic - Makes each monomer different from another

Are informational polymers branched or linear? Why?

Linear, as monomers have only two asymmetric joining sites

How to draw polymers?

The orientation of the growing chain should always be to the right

Nucleotides - Common/Characteristic element

Common - Penrose sugar backbone

Characteristic - Heterocyclic base

Joining sites on nucleotide?

The 5’ phosphate (negative charge) the 3’OH

Direction of growth in DNA

Always addition of polymers in 3’ end

DNA vs RNA

DNA has an -H instead of an -OH, is double stranded and has thymine instead of uracil (RNA opposite)

Two types of heterocyclic bases

Purines - Pair of fused carbon rings (A, G)

Pyrimidines - Single carbon ring (U, T, C)

Bond between sugar and bases

N-Glycosidic bond

Bond between phosphate and sugar

Phosphodiester bond

Amino acids - Common/Characteristic elements

Common - Carbon linked with carboxyl & amino group

Characteristic - Amino acid side chain (R)

Amino acid joining sites

Amino terminus and Carboxyl terminus

Types of amino acids

Hydrophobic

Hydrophilic

Special

Bond between adjacent amino acids

Peptide bond

High energised DNA monomers are found as…

Nucleoside triphosphates, of whcih the two outer phosphates are then kicked out when NTP is incorporated

High energised amino acid monomers are found as…

Amino acyl-tRNA esters, which contain a high energy ester bond. t-RNA molecule is then kicked out

Enzymes for monomers to join polymers

DNA = DNA polymerase

RNA = RNA polymerase

Protein = Ribosome

How are DNA strands held together

By Watson-Crick bases, which contain hydrogen

Number of hydrogen bonds between bases

A-T = 2 double bonds

C-G= 3 double bonds

What is Tm and how can it be influenced?

The temperature at which half the DNA is melted. Depends on the amount of C-G bases