It is amazing how much I forgot regarding simple concepts such as DNA replication. It is wonderful to see the chemistry behind these biological processes. I had a little trouble making sense of the pictures and diagrams, although I really want to understand those better because they seem to be really helpful aids in terms of being able to visualize what is happening with nucleic acids. Huge strands of DNA are compacted by more interactions which cause supercoiling. As a biology major, most of this chapter is a review for me, yet it is wonderful introduction to biochem.
Biology is a division of chemistry- life exists due to chemistry.
One could say that the very first life was merely a strand of nucleic acid capable of catalyzing itself for duplication. It is no wonder that we started the course with this chapter. The fact that the nucleic acids absorb in the UV spectrum means that the first life must have existed not only in an environment void of free oxygen, but also sunlight. I found the most interesting part of this unit the process of formation of the phosphodiester linkage. I now understand why hydrolysis is the more thermodynamically favored reaction between the monophosphate molecule and polynucleotide strand.