DNA Replication

The purpose of DNA replication is so that the genetic material can be passed from the original cell to the daughter cell. New strands of DNA is needed to produce new cells. This is because cells in ones body are dying every second, however, new cells are being made as well, this is why we don't clearly notice them.

Steps:

1. Unzipping the hydrogen bonds with the enzyme helicase.

2.complementary base pairing with ATP energy to build new molecules. 

3. Form of a new sugar phosphate backbone and checks for mistakes with the enzyme DNA polymerase. 

4. Now you have two identical strands. The two strands are semiconservative which means it has a strand from the original DNA in each new DNA and a daughter strand in each new DNA.

During DNA replication there is a chance of having a mutation. Not all mutations are bad, some may even improve your health and some may not even make a difference. There are three types of mutations that can happen; addition, deletion and substitution. Substitution mutation is the least dangerous mutation because if one letter gets switched it only would affect one amino acid and it may not even affect the amino acid because there are many codons for one amino acid. On the other hand, addition and deletion has more of a risk of messing up your health. Addition is when a letter is added and deletion is when a letter is deleted. You can think of the sequence of a DNA as a sentence.

Notice in the substitution sentence still makes sence even though there is a mutation. As suppose to the other two mutations. After the mutation in each sentence the sentence does not make sense at all. This proves how addition and deletion are way worse mutations and how they can seriously mess up your DNA.


This is our DNA replication video: