It’s a polymer made up of two polynucleotide chains that coil around each other to form a double helix that contains genetic instructions for all known organisms and viruses’ formation, functioning, growth, and reproduction. Nucleic acids contain DNA and ribonucleic acid (RNA).
Because they are made up of smaller monomeric units called nucleotides, the two DNA strands are known as polynucleotides.
Each nucleotide is made up of a sugar termed deoxyribose, a phosphate group, and one of four nitrogen-containing nucleobases (adenine [A], cytosine [C], guanine [G] or thymine [T]).
Covalent connections (known as the phospho-diester linkage) between the sugar of one nucleotide and the phosphate of the next nucleotide link the nucleotides together in a chain, resulting in an alternating sugar-phosphate backbone.
Although the its molecule was discovered in the year 1869, it was not until the year 1943 that its involvement in genetic heredity was proved.
James Watson and Francis Crick revealed that Deoxyribonucleic acid is a double-helix polymer, a spiral made up of two DNA strands twisted around each other, in 1953, with the help of biophysicists Rosalind Franklin and Maurice Wilkins.
As a result of the breakthrough, scientists now have a better understanding of DNA replication and hereditary control of cellular activity.
Credit: U.S. National Library of Medicine
Current (Modern) Use of DNA Technology:
Short tandem repeat (STR) analysis in transplantation: Useful in Allogeneic bone marrow transplantation
Identifying a killer investigation- Development of a its database for future criminal investigation.