Question

Consider a piece of double stranded DNA in which each strand of the helix has 1800 nucleotides. If the piece of double-stranded DNA had a total of exactly 600 deoxycytidine monophosphate nucleotides, how many deoxyguanosine monophosphate nucleotide would be present?

Answer 1

In DNA, the number of deoxyguanosine monophosphate (dGMP) nucleotides can be determined based on the ratio of deoxycytidine monophosphate (dCMP) nucleotides to deoxyguanosine monophosphate (dGMP) nucleotides. For every dCMP nucleotide, there are two dGMP nucleotides. Therefore, if there are 600 dCMP nucleotides, there would be 1200 dGMP nucleotides.

Step-by-step explanation:

In DNA, the nucleotides adenine (A) and thymine (T) pair up, while cytosine (C) pairs with guanine (G). The two strands of DNA are complementary to each other, meaning that the sequence on one strand determines the sequence on the other. To find the number of deoxyguanosine monophosphate (dGMP) nucleotides present, we need to know the ratio of deoxycytidine monophosphate (dCMP) nucleotides to deoxyguanosine monophosphate (dGMP) nucleotides in the DNA. Since each DNA strand has 1800 nucleotides and there are 600 dCMP nucleotides, the ratio of dCMP to dGMP is 600:1200 or 1:2. This means that for every dCMP nucleotide, there are two dGMP nucleotides. Therefore, the number of dGMP nucleotides present would be 2 x 600 = 1200.