The chemical structure of nucleic acids

← Term 3

Last updated: 19-09-2017.

Files to download

[.mrv file for the second task]

[Archive containing .mrv files from Task 3]

Task 2. Nucleotides and fragments of nucleic acids

Figures 1 and 2 are the results of realisation of Task 2. In Fig. 1 atoms having N-glycosidic bond are colored red.

Figure 1. Some nucleotides for the second task.

Figure 2. DNA double strand fragment.

Task 3. Non-canonical base pairs

Due to this table I was supposed to study possible non-canonical base pairs for thymine. As this task was more about pictures than text it was decided to introduce notation system: nucleotide letter written with '*' symbol means that nucleotide's structure was changed according to lactim lactam tautomerism. For example 'T*'. Green letters 'U' and 'L' mean unlikely and likely. The decision to assign a particular letter to each compound were made on the basis of the proximity of the structure and geometry to canonical base pairs. Also, rare variants (in my opinion) had 'U' letter. For example all pairs of tautomeric nucleotides are marked with letter 'U'.

Possible T-A pairs (Figure 3)

Figure 3. Possible T-A pairs.

Possible T-T pairs (Figure 4)

Figure 4. Possible T-T pairs.

Possible T-G pairs (Figure 5)

Figure 5. Possible T-G pairs.

Possible T-C pairs (Figure 6)

Figure 6. Possible T-C pairs.

© Simon Galkin, 2016