Chapter 24: Q6P (page 875)
Use the information in Table 11-1 to estimate the half-life, in years, of a phosphodiester bond in DNA.
Short Answer
A phosphodiester bond has a half-life of 548,387 years.
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Chapter 24: Q6P (page 875)
Use the information in Table 11-1 to estimate the half-life, in years, of a phosphodiester bond in DNA.
A phosphodiester bond has a half-life of 548,387 years.
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The ends of eukaryotic chromosomes terminate in a G-rich single-stranded overhang that can fold up on itself to form a four-stranded structure. In this structure, four guanine residues assume a hydrogen-bonded planar arrangement with an overall geometry that can be represented as shown below. Draw the complete structure of this 鈥淕 quartet,鈥 including the hydrogen bonds between the purine bases.

The enzyme ornithine decarboxylase generates a product that has been proposed to play a role in stabilizing compacted DNA. Draw the structure of the ornithine decarboxylase reaction product and explain how it interacts with DNA.
A bacterial chromosome consists of a protein鈥揇NA complex in which its single DNA molecule appears to be supercoiled. However, in contrast to the case with naked circular duplex DNA, the light single-strand nicking of chromosomal DNA does not abolish this supercoiling. What does this indicate about the structure of the bacterial chromosome, that is, how do its proteins constrain its DNA?
What is the role of histones in compacting DNA
Why do restriction endonucleases make both site-specific and nonspecific contacts with DNA?
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