CHAPTER 5 - MOLECULAR BASIS OF INHERITANCE
Molecular Basis of Inheritance - During inheritance, chromosome pass on genes from a generation to next generations but it is not chromosome, it is DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) which is the genetic material. Hence molecular basis of inheritance is DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid). The DNA (DeoxyriboNucleic Acid ) DNA is a long polymer of deoxyribonucleotides. The length of DNA is usually defined as number of nucleotides (or a pair of nucleotide referred to as base pairs) present in it. This also is the characteristic of an organism. For example - a bacteriophage known as ϕ×174 has 5386 nucleotides Bacteriophage lambda has 48502 base pairs (bp) Escherichia coli has 4.6 × 106 bp haploid content of human DNA is 3.3 × 109 bp Structure of Polynucleotide Chain (DNA or RNA ) A nucleotide has three components – a nitrogenous base a pentose sugar (ribose in case of RNA and deoxyribose for DNA) a phosphate group. There are two t...