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DNS

Abbreviation for deoxyribonucleic acid; see under DNA.

Common international abbreviation for the English term deoxyribonucleic acid. The German term DNS (deoxyribonucleic acid) is hardly used any more to avoid confusion with the Domain Name System (DNS) of the Internet. The structure of DNA was discovered in 1953 by biologists James Watson (*1928) and Francis Crick (1916-2004), who together with Maurice Wilkins (1916-2004) were awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1962.

The name is derived from the first letters of the basic DNA building blocks deoxyribose (a type of sugar consisting of five carbon atoms) and type of sugara pentose), phosphoric acid and four bases, which make up nucleic acid. DNA is a chain molecule in the cell nuclei of all plant, fungal, animal and human organisms, which serves as a carrier of genetic information for the maintenance of all biological life processes and is inherited. The genes are responsible for every single function in an organism, such as cell division or metabolism.

The entire genetic material is called the genome, whereas a gene is a small section in the DNA chain of varying size. Each gene is responsible for certain functions by means of different proteins. For example, the OCA2 gene is responsible for almost all human eye colours. The genome contains the information for the production of RNA (ribonucleic acid = ribonucleic acid RNA). In contrast to DNA, RNA is not in the form of a double helixbut as a single strand. The task of RNA is to "read" the information stored in the DNA and convert it into proteins. In house building, the building plan can be described as DNA and the craftsmen working on it as RNA.

DNA - Doppel-Helix

Structure of DNA

The genes form a long chain molecule, which is made up of two single strands of DNA running in opposite directions in the form of a twisted rope ladder, also known as a double helix (hélix = winding). These are known as chromosomes (colour bodies). This can be imagined as an extremely long, thin rope ladder. The length of DNA in a human cell is almost two metres (see diagram at the bottom). As a human being consists of around 100 trillion of the body's own cells (25% of which are blood cells, which have no cell nucleus), the total length of DNA in a human being is 150 billion kilometres, which is around a thousand times the distance from the earth to the sun at around 150 million kilometres.

The two sides of the ladder (the rods) are called "strands". These consist of phosphoric acid and sugar molecules (deoxyribose), which are the four bases adenine, guanine, cytosine and thymine. Two opposite bases are called a base pair. A base pair is the smallest unit of information in DNA. The connection of the pairs is the "rung" of the ladder, whereby there are only two different pairs that fit together like a lock and key. A and T form one pair and C and G form the other pair. For example, if the individual molecules on one strand form a DNA section "TAACGCCCTTA", this results in the sequence "ATTGGCGGGAAT" on the opposite strand.

The diagram above shows a section of a DNA strand. A phosphoric acid ester unit and a sugar unit form the backbone of a molecule (part of the blue band). Together with a base, these three units form a nucleotide (red ellipses). The two nucleotides (ellipses) form a macromolecule of the nucleic acid type deoxyribonucleic acid. In addition to their function as information storage, nucleic acids, which are regarded as the "key molecules of life", can also serve as signal transmitters or catalyse (support) biochemical reactions. The diagram below shows the human genome of a man (23 chromosome pairs = 46) with the sex-determining XY strand at the end (woman = XX).

Chromosom - Human Genom Male (Mann)

Chromosome 2 is the second largest chromosome in humans and consists of around 243 million base pairs. It contains about 8% of the total DNA of a human cell. 1,346 protein-coding...

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