spiral structure of DNA?

Question

how DNA get facilitated by its helical or spiral structure? if it ware ladder structure, what could be the problem?moreover, why DNA is called acid?

Answer 1

The helical structure facilitates the super-coiling of the DNA, allowing nearly 5 feet of it to fit into one teeny-weeny cell. The helical coil also leads to the formation of major and minor grooves, where water molecules can interact with the negatively charged Phosphate groups of the nucleotides to stabilize the overalll structure. The DNA(polynucleotide) is called an acid 'coz each nucleotide has a PO4 group, which is negatively charged, meaning, it is acidic, lending an overall -ve charge to the molecule.

Answer 2

Well, its hard to understand exactly what you are asking, but DNA Does have a ladder structure. Its just that the forces between the atoms in the molecule cause it to twist into a helix, as well. Since it is a helix, this structure provides strength and stability to the molecule. It is called an acid because each nucleotide (the "rungs" of the ladder) is slightly acidic (that is it ads a little bit of H+ to an aqueous solution).

Answer 3

just a minuit !its usually a double strand cos there is a base pair attraction eg between adenine and thyamine...cytosine and guanine usually between a pyrimidine and purine in the nucleotides!DNA is made up of nucleotides many nucleotides joining up by condensation reaction just like formation of polyethene....which forms this long strand of dna... a nucleotide usually for humans has phosphoric acid attached to a pentose sugar which in turn is attached to an organic base either pyrimidine or purine.if it was a ladder shape an efficient packing is impossible a cell usually is invisible to the naked eye and indeed the nucleus containing dna has to be very small only the chromosomes are visible and clear during cell division.....using a light microscope! DNA is acidic because it is derived from a nucleotide which in turn is derived from 3 molecules phosphoric acid,base and pentose sugar!there are so many answers!but this one could be short...dna has acid properties cos it has been derived from an acid...phosphoric acid!there are 4 electronegative o atoms attached to a phosphor in the acid!it can easily pull a H atom from water or etc allowing it to act as proton acceptor making the dna acidic!

Answer 4

The DNA because of its double helix shape can store more information while occupying smaller space. If it had just a ladder like structure it would take lot more of space to save the same information. This does not warrant a bigger nucleus, which would in turn mean larger cell. This is a very inconvenient thing when one thinks of the excessively large gametes that would carry this DNA.
Putting it in simple words. DNA is a protein, like all proteins it is also composed of amino acids. Thus the name acid.

Answer 5

Hydrophobic interactions between the stacked base pairs maintain the helical structure. It is called acid because phosphates are negatively charged at neutral pH.

Answer 6

The spiral structure is due to the Hydrogen bondsa binding together the complementary base pairs. A ladder structure is not compact enough for packing.

DNA does have -COOH groups.

Answer 7

I thought DNA was the National Dyslexia Association..

Answer 8

I don't think anyone knows for sure why the double helix shape exists. It's one of those things that was either random or had some intelligence behind it. Take your pick.

Answer 9

I think DNA has a sprial structure because it thinks it's all cool and Hollywood.