TABLE OF CONTENTS A protein has a molecular weight of 70,000 Dalton. A Dalton is the same as a unified atomic mass unit. The average mass of an amino acid residue is 110 Dalton. This protein has two strands of ? helix chains that are the same length.
What is the mass, in Dalton, of one of the chains?
How many amino acid residues does this chain contain?
Each residue is 0.15 nm long. How long are the chains?
A mutation occurs to a single amino acid residue. This causes a protein to lose its ability to catalyze a reaction. Clearly, the primary sequence has been changed. Do you think that the secondary structure might have changed also? Explain.
Glycine is the smallest amino acid residue. It is found that the position of glycine residues in a given protein does not change during evolution. Given that glycine is not charged and that all other residues are larger or charged, why might this be the case? Hint: think steric reasons and secondary structure.
A scientist studies double helix DNA and finds that on one of the helices, 10% of the bases are A, 30% of the bases are C, 25% of the bases are T and the balance are G.
What percentage of the bases are G?
What are the percentages of A, G, T, and G on the complementary chain?
The DNA of a virus has a length of 65,000 nm. The distance between base pairs is 0.34 nm. How...
