Question

Why is pH buffering in the body so important. Use a nucleic acid as an example. Include the role of Inter-molecular forces in the morphology (structure) of a nucleic acid?

Answer 1

Buffers are the aqueous solutions that resist changes in ph of our body.

Now as we know, nucleic acids have phosphodiester bonds in between them,their digestion requires acidic environment. In fact a study shows when they were subjected to a ph of more than 3.8, less than 0.2% of depurination occured in more than 3 hours. However when ph was adjusted less than 2.5 , significant metabolism was observed.

So buffers have a major role in all the metabolic biochemical reactions in our body.