Exam 4: Nucleic Acids and the Origin of Life

In which characteristic are living cells and protocells alike?

_______ is the theory that life's simple molecules formed in Earth's primitive environment.

Which is found in a DNA molecule but not in an RNA molecule?

To test the idea of spontaneous generation, Francesco Redi used three jars containing meat, as represented by the figure below. Suppose Pasteur had set up jars of sterile broth in the same way that Redi set up jars of meat to show that microorganisms do not arise spontaneously.In this case, two jars would serve as the controls and jar number _______ would differ from the controls, as both air and microorganisms would be excluded from entering the environment.

Refer to the figure below illustrating the "RNA world" hypothesis. Which statement about this hypothetical evolutionary model is true?

It is noteworthy that the Miller-Urey experiments produced ribose sugars, because they are

Refer to the figure below diagramming a protein composed of two R subunits and two C subunits.The R subunits are identical and the C subunits are identical, but R and C differ from each other. The figure depicts a nucleotide performing a function.How can this function be described?

Refer to the table below showing data obtained from laboratory experiments that used the amino acid glycine in combination with a clay mineral kaolinite.The combination was subjected to repeated cycles of wetting and drying over many days.At various times during these cycles, samples were analyzed for changes, specifically the yield of glycine dimers, etc.Control samples without kaolinite produced no change in glycine. Which hypothesis about the origin of life on Earth do these data support?

Replication is the synthesis of _______, while transcription is the synthesis of _______.

Because fatty acids are amphipathic, with hydrophobic tails, they

One function of nucleic acids is to

In the double-stranded structure of DNA,

Molecules consisting of only a pentose sugar and a nitrogenous base are called _______.

DNA differs from RNA in that

The DNA sequence ATTCGTTCA is equivalent to which RNA sequence?

RNA differs from DNA in that

Refer to the table below listing several protein enzymes found in modern cells, along with the rate constants of the reactions they catalyze in the presence of enzyme (k_enzyme) and in the absence of enzyme (k_non).The rate of a chemical reaction depends on its rate constant; the higher the rate constant, the greater the rate of reaction.Rate also depends on substrate and enzyme concentrations; however, for purposes of comparison, all concentrations have been kept constant with respect to these data.With this in mind, you can compare the rates of the catalyzed and noncatalyzed reactions using these rate constants. What can you infer from these data about why catalysts were likely to have been important in the origin of life?

If pyrimidines could bind to other pyrimidines, and purines could bind to other purines, what would be the effect on the DNA double helix?

Condensation of monomers to produce a polymer requires that water molecules be formed as products.This process would not be favored in an environment filled with water and with a low concentration of potential reactant molecules.As a result, it would have been necessary for certain types of substances such as metal ions to act as _______ to speed up these polymerization reactions in aqueous environments.

Nucleotides in RNA are connected to one another in the polynucleotide chain by _______ bonds between _______.