What are Chargaff's rules? why are they of structural importance to DNA? how did they contribute to the solving of the DNA double helix structure? Please explain?
Ans) Chargaff's rules state that DNA from any cell of any organism should have a 1:1 of purine and pyrimidine and more specifically that the amount of guanine should be equal to cytosine and amount of adenine equal to thymine.
Through careful experiments, Chargaff proposed two rules which contribute majorly to the double helix structure if DNA. Chargaff's rules are important because they point to a kind of "grammar of biology" and act as a set of hidden rules that govern the structure if DNA.
Chargaff's rule showed that in natural DNA, the number of guanine units are equal to cytosine and adenine units are equal to thymine. This strongly hinted towards the basepair makeup of the DNA. Chargaff's research helped Watson and Crick to deduce the double helical structure of DNA.
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