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Biomolecules and Complex Biological Entities
Published in Simona Badilescu, Muthukumaran Packirisamy, BioMEMS, 2016
Simona Badilescu, Muthukumaran Packirisamy
Due to its unique structure and composition, deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) serves as a genetic (hereditary) information-carrying molecule in living organisms. DNA is the molecule responsible for both the storage and transmission of information to the next generation. The discovery of the structure and function of DNA (Watson and Crick, 1953) is considered the most important of the twentieth century and had a tremendous impact on science and medicine. For replication, DNA acts as a template for the production of RNA and proteins. The discovery of DNA has contributed to a better understanding of genetic and infectious diseases, to the creation of new drugs, and to the development of gene therapy. Because of the importance of DNA as a biological template, enormous efforts have been focused on the complete understanding of its functions and contribution in biological systems, as well as on the isolation, detection, and analysis of DNA.
DNA Markers in Forensic and Diagnostic Science
Published in Hajiya Mairo Inuwa, Ifeoma Maureen Ezeonu, Charles Oluwaseun Adetunji, Emmanuel Olufemi Ekundayo, Abubakar Gidado, Abdulrazak B. Ibrahim, Benjamin Ewa Ubi, Medical Biotechnology, Biopharmaceutics, Forensic Science and Bioinformatics, 2022
M. Y. Tatfeng, D. E. Agbonlahor, Ifeoma B. Enweani-Nwokelo, Ifeoma M. Ezeonu, Francisca Nwaokorie, E. A. Brisibe, D. Esiobu
Over six decades ago, the suggested double-helical structure of the genetic material by Watson and Crick offered reliable evidence explaining the transfer of genetic information from generation to generation (Travers and Muskhelishvili, 2015). The sequence complementarity with adenine pairing thymine and guanine pairing cytosine explained the discovery in the past by Avery et al. (1944) that DNA was the transforming principle. The transforming principle is responsible for the transfer of genetic information between different strains of bacteria.
Genes and Genomics
Published in Firdos Alam Khan, Biotechnology Fundamentals, 2020
It was not until the late 1940s and early 1950s that most biologists accepted the evidence showing that DNA must be the chromosomal component that carries hereditary information. One of the most convincing experiments was that of Alfred Hershey and Martha Chase, who used radioactive labeling to reach this conclusion in 1952. This team of biologists grew a specific type of phage, known as T2, in the presence of two different radioactive labels so that the phage DNA incorporated radioactive phosphorus (32P), while the protein incorporated radioactive sulfur (35S). They then allowed the labeled phage particles to infect non-radioactive bacteria trying to find the label associated with the infected cell. Their analysis showed that most of the 32P-label was found inside of the cell, while most of the 35S was found outside. This suggested that the proteins of the T2 phage remained outside of the newly infected bacterium while the phage-derived DNA was injected into the cell. They then showed that the phage-derived DNA caused the infected cells to produce new phage particles. This elegant work showed, conclusively, that DNA is the molecule that holds genetic information. Meanwhile, much of the scientific world was asking questions about the physical structure of the DNA molecule, and the relationship of that structure to its complex functioning. In 1951, the then 23-year-old biologist James Watson traveled from the United States to work with Francis Crick, an English physicist at the University of Cambridge. Crick was already using the process of x-ray crystallography to study the structure of protein molecules. Together, Watson and Crick used x-ray crystallography data, produced by Rosalind Franklin and Maurice Wilkins at King’s College in London, to decipher DNA’s structure. The discovery of the double helix structure of DNA marks the beginning of modern biotechnology.
Lie symmetry analysis of a stochastic gene evolution in double-chain deoxyribonucleic acid system
Published in Waves in Random and Complex Media, 2022
R. Saleh, S. M. Mabrouk, Abdul-Majid Wazwaz
DNA structure has been extensively studied during the last decades [12–16]. It is to be noted that mathematical modeling of dynamical DNA system is very complicated due to its characteristic multiplicity and the dynamics of genomes evolution is indeed chaotic [17]. The double helix structure of DNA has been stimulated by the pioneer works of Watson and Crick [18]. The open state dynamics of DNA have been studied by Englander et al [19], where they considered the rotational motion of nitrogen bases. Yomosa [20] has presented a dynamics plane-base rotator model. Takeno and Homma [21] have improved Yomosa’s model by considering the degree of freedom, labeling base rotations in the plane perpendicular to the helical axis around the backbone structure. The denaturation process of the transverse motions for the hydrogen bond bases was studied in [22]. The transverse motions of the hydrogen bond beside longitudinal motions over the backbone direction were suggested in [23]. These two motions provided the main contribution in the DNA denaturation process. A new double-chain DNA model has been introduced by Xing et al [24]. They considered that, DNA involves two long, supple homogeneous strands, which present two polynucleotide chains of the DNA molecule, joined by an elastic membrane demonstrating the hydrogen bonds between the base pair of these chains. Several mathematical methods have been applied to study the nonlinear dynamics of the double-chain DNA model. Pickering’s truncation and the Conte’s Painlevé truncation expansions [25], were employed to find the exact solutions of the double-chain DNA model. The traveling wave solutions in the form of bell-shaped and periodic solitary waves for the coupled DNA nonlinear dynamical equations are obtained and simulated numerically [26]. The Riccati parameterized factorization method [9] is applied to find the solitary wave solution. The expansion method was applied to find different solitary wave solutions as, soliton, kink, periodic and multi-soliton waves [27].