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Genetic Material

Genetic material is the inheritable material of an organism. The genetic material of most
life forms is comprised of DNA. DNA is present in the cells as chromosomes, which are
found in the nucleus of eukaryotes. This is not the only location for genetic material.
Some DNA is located in the organelles of various organisms.

These organelles are chiefly known as mitochondria, or in plants as chloroplasts. Genes


that are contained in organelles are said to show "extra nuclear inheritance." These types
of genes show a slightly different pattern of inheritance compared to nuclear genes. Some
organisms contain RNA as their genetic material. This type of inheritable material is
restricted to only a small number of viruses. Organisms which have their genetic material
dispersed throughout the cell are called prokaryotes. Some bacteria and all viruses are
prokaryotes.

Genetic material must be able to replicate information about itself to pass on to future
generations. In 1944, Oswald Avery showed that genetic material was carried in the
nucleic acid of the cell. In 1953, James Watson and Francis Crick suggested the method
by which DNA was able to replicate itself.
Genetic material is used to store the genetic information of an organic life form. For all
currently known living organisms, the genetic material is almost exclusively
Deoxyribonucleic Acid DNA. Some viruses use Ribonucleic Acid RNA as their genetic
material.

The first genetic material is generally believed to have been RNA, initially manifested by
self-replicating RNA molecules floating on bodies of water. This hypothetical period in
the evolution of cellular life is known as the RNA world. This hypothesis is based on
RNA's ability to act both as genetic material and as a catalyst, known as ribozyme or a
ribosome. However, once proteins, which can form enzymes, came into existence, the
more stable molecule DNA became the dominant genetic material, a situation continued
today. Not only does DNA's double-stranded nature allow for correction of mutations but
RNA is inherently unstable. Modern cells use RNA mainly for the building of proteins
from DNA instructions, in the form of messenger RNA, ribosomal RNA, and transfer
RNA.

Both RNA and DNA are macromolecules composed of nucleotides, of which there are
four available in each molecule. Four nucleotides compose a codon, a sort of "genetic
word", which is like an amino acid in a protein. The codon-amino acid translation is
known as the genetic code.

A codon is composed of three base pairs, one base normally always being attached to one
of the other bases. In other words, two normal combinations, which means that DNA was
the first binary code. Fourty-eight base pairs are in human Deoxyribonucleic Acid, which
allows for about 2^48 (281 474 976 710 656) combinations. What's more is that, unlike
many other organisms, the base pairs for humans are of nearly equal proportions, which
probably reduces the number of viable combinations to more like 2^47.

Jenetisists hav also come up with rules that would make DNA repeat itself in
palindromes, a characteristic that, if it were a strict rule, would cut the exponent (the
number of bits in the above numbers) in half, to less than 2^24 (16.7 million) viable
combinations.

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