Pyrovus
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Why DNA?
This question's been bugging me for quite a while: why do they call it deoxyribosenucleic ACID, when it's actually basic, with all of those
base pairs?
Never accept that which can be changed.
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Nerro
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The phosphate groups on the outside (the two stalks on of the ladder so to speak) are acidic.
#261501 +(11351)- [X]
the \"bishop\" came to our church today
he was a fucken impostor
never once moved diagonally
courtesy of bash
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leo
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dna
becasue DNA is one 1/2 O2 lack from RNA. so they call it deox...acid.
LEONARDO
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Pyrovus
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| Quote: | Originally posted by Nerro
The phosphate groups on the outside (the two stalks on of the ladder so to speak) are acidic. |
Yes, but overall the whole thing would have to be basic. If the phosphate groups were mostly in the acidic form, then you'd end up getting a
zwitterion, with the bases accepting protons from the phosphate groups. As a result the bases would become positively charged, and the two strands
would then repel one another.
Never accept that which can be changed.
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Nicodem
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Those amino groups on adenine, cytosine and guanine are very weak bases. These amino functions are even considerably less basic than the amino group
of aniline (pKa<4). They must also contribute to the hydrogen bonding and can only do so if not protonated. The hetereocyclic nitrogens in the
purine/pyrimidine rings are mostly not basic at all. On the other hand the phosphoryloxy gropus are quite acidic (pKa~3).
So all in all the whole DNA is an acid, though quite a weak one.
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