Nucleic acids are very large biomolecules that encode your genetic information and help the cells produce functional and structural proteins from that genetic information. Your DNA is probably the most familiar of the nucleic acids, but you also have several other types of nucleic acids in your cells.
Nucleic Acids
Nucleic acids vary a bit in terms of their structure, but they all have a backbone made up of molecules of sugar and phosphate. The sugar isn't identical to table sugar, but it's chemically similar. Some nucleic acids use the sugar ribose, while others use a sugar called deoxyribose, explain Drs. Reginald Garrett and Charles Grisham in their book "Biochemistry." Phosphate groups are small charged particles made up of phosphorus and oxygen. Nucleic acids also have molecules called nitrogenous bases in their structures.
Encoding Genetic Information
One of the most fundamental--and most familiar--ways in which your body uses nucleic acids is to encode your genetic information. Your cells contain DNA--deoxyribonucleic acid--which is a nucleic acid molecule that contains all the genes from both your mother and your father. Your cells treat DNA as a set of "instructions" for building proteins that the cell uses to perform its various functions.
Acting as a Template
Your DNA is sequestered in the nucleus of each cell, explain Drs. Mary Campbell and Shawn Farrell in their book "Biochemistry," but the machinery the cells use to make protein is outside the nucleus. As such, you need nucleic acids called mRNA--messenger ribonucleic acid--to act as a "working copy" or template of the information contained in your DNA. You make mRNA in the nucleus, and it carries the information from the DNA into the rest of the cell.
Producing Proteins
You also use nucleic acids as part of the machinery that makes protein from the information encoded in your mRNA. These nucleic acids are rRNA and tRNA--ribosomal and transfer ribonucleic acid, respectively. The rRNA forms part of a protein-producing structure called the ribosome. TRNA fetches amino acids--the building blocks of protein--and carries them to the rRNA for assembly into protein in the specific order provided by the mRNA.
References
- "Biochemistry"; Reginald Garrett, Ph.D. and Charles Grisham, Ph.D.; 2007
- "Biochemistry"; Mary Campbell, Ph.D. and Shawn Farrell, Ph.D.; 2005
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