Investigation of the Properties of Stem Loop DNA

Abstract

DNA or deoxyribonucleic acid is the genetic material of almost all living organisms and it is a polymer of deoxynucleotide monomers that are linked together by phosphodiester bonds. Each deoxynucleotide consists of a phosphate group and a nitrogen-containing base that are both attached to a 5-carbon sugar known as deoxyribose. The nitrogenous bases found in DNA are adenine (A), cytosine (C), guanine (G), and thymine (T). The primary structure of DNA consists of a single DNA strand with two distinct ends. The 5’ end, in most cases, terminates in a phosphate group and the 3’ end terminates in the hydroxyl group on a sugar molecule. When two strands of DNA come together to form a double helix, the strands lie anti-parallel to each other, where the 5’ end of one strand will align with the 3’ end of another strand; this helix depicts the tertiary structure and the most common form of DNA (Figure 1). The two strands of DNA are held together by complementary base pairing which involves the specific interaction of A with T and G with C. These base pairs are stabilized by hydrogen bonds and stacking interactions.[Introduction]