A single strand of DNA helix consists of 100 nitrogenous base pairs. On one strand, 36 of the bases are adenine and 24 are cytosine. For the complimentary strand of DNA, which would complete the proper base pairing?

Question

Laney Stein

Biology

22 September, 09:00

A single strand of DNA helix consists of 100 nitrogenous base pairs. On one strand, 36 of the bases are adenine and 24 are cytosine. For the complimentary strand of DNA, which would complete the proper base pairing?

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Deon Cunningham · Answer 1

Hello!

For the complementary strand of DNA, 36 Thymine bases and 24 Guanine bases would complete the proper base pairing.

This is given by the concept of complementarity. A base in DNA has complementarity with only one other base. This complementarity is produced by hydrogen bond interactions.

For DNA, Adenine couples with Thymine and Cytosine couples with Guanine. So the 36 adenine bases will couple with 35 thymine bases, and so on.

Have a nice day!