Nucleic acid
In 1869 Friedrich Miescher developed ways of isolating intact nuclei from cells and analyzing their chemical content. From the nuclei he extracted substances rich in phosphorus and nitrogen. They came to be known as “nucleic acids.” Miescher predicted that they would someday be considered as important as proteins. The substances turned out to be deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) which was found by Avery, MacLeod and McCarty in 1944 to be the genetic material. They proved this clearly by using bacterial DNA to change (transform) the genetic material of other bacteria.
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- Nucleic acid hybridization
DNA-DNA (DNA can be rendered single-stranded by heat denaturation), DNA-RNA or RNA-RNA. In situ hybridization involves hybridizing a labelled nucleic acid (often labelled with a fluorescent dye) to suitably prepared cells or histological sections. This is used particularly to look for specific transcription or localization of genes to specific chromosomes via fluorescent in situ hybridization […]
- Nucleocaspid
The genome plus the protein coat of a viral. The genome is nucleic acid. The protein coat is the capsid. The term nucleocaspid was coined in 1963.
- Nucleosome
A structure that is responsible in part for the compactness of a chromosome. Each nucleosome consists of a sequence of DNA wrapped around a core of histone, which is a type of protein.
- Nucleotide
A subunit of DNA or RNA that consists of a nitrogenous base (A, G, T, or C in DNA; A, G, U, or C in RNA), a phosphate molecule, and a sugar molecule (deoxyribose in DNA, and ribose in RNA). Thousands of nucleotides are linked to form a DNA or an RNA molecule.
- Nucleus
1) In cell biology, the structure that houses the chromosomes. 2) In neuroanatomy, a group of nerve cells.