3 ms·
I'm sure DNA physical structure (angles, bends, etc.) with Arsenic instead of Phosphorous won't be exactly same. Arsenic has same tetrahedral structure as Phosp
by paraschopra 16y ago
I'm sure DNA physical structure (angles, bends, etc.) with Arsenic instead of Phosphorous won't be exactly same. Arsenic has same tetrahedral structure as Phosphorous but the atom is sure bigger in size and at DNA scales, size would play a large role in determining shape of molecule. I'm sure you realize that physical interactions play a great role in a cell.
- dnautics 16y agoyou would think, but there's also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XDNA http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XDNA It's true that the subtle loss of a hydroxyl group leads to all sorts of differences between RNA and DNA (RNA likes to be single-stranded more than DNA does) but there's TNAs (unfortunate acronyms) and PNAs (not to be confused with PNAS) and other things that basically work and look like DNA with fairly un-subtle changes. Furthermore, Arsenic really isn't THAT much bigger than Phosphorus (vdw radius 1.85 vs 1.80; covalent radius 1.19 vs 1.06).