What makes dna unzip

Sign-up to receive our e-alert update every two weeks to keep up with everything new on the portal. More podcasts. Research Highlight. References Prakash, S. Shear unzipping of double-stranded DNA.

E 84, Article. In: Facts In the Cell. This is carried out by an enzyme called helicase which breaks the hydrogen bonds holding the complementary bases of DNA together A with T, C with G. The two separated strands will act as templates for making the new strands of DNA. As a result of their different orientations, the two strands are replicated differently: An illustration to show replication of the leading and lagging strands of DNA.

Related Content:. What is a genome? What is DNA? What is a cell? Cells need to copy their DNA when they divide. This process is called DNA replication. DNA is made of two long strands that wrap around each other to make the famous double helix. Each strand is composed of a sequence of molecules called nucleotides.

Bases are a part of the nucleotides. There are four possible bases, A, C, T and G. The bases of one strand pair up with the bases of the other strand in a very simple way called the base-pairing rule.

C pairs up with G and A pairs up with T. Because of how the bases pair up, the two strands come together like a molecular zipper. During replication, the strands are unzipped and each is copied following the base-pairing rule.

So if there is an A, when you make the copy, you should put in a T and vice versa. The same holds true for G and C. When replication is complete, each new DNA contains one old and one new strand or one parental and one daughter strand. Sounds easy, doesn't it? Once you get into the nuts and bolts of replication, this simple idea becomes complicated in a hurry.