{"id":96573,"date":"2019-09-23T06:23:32","date_gmt":"2019-09-23T13:23:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2019\/09\/scientists-were-wrong-about-dna-it-is-actually-held-together"},"modified":"2019-09-23T06:23:32","modified_gmt":"2019-09-23T13:23:32","slug":"scientists-were-wrong-about-dna-it-is-actually-held-together","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2019\/09\/scientists-were-wrong-about-dna-it-is-actually-held-together","title":{"rendered":"Scientists Were Wrong About DNA \u2013 It Is Actually Held Together"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/scientists-were-wrong-about-dna-it-is-actually-held-together2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Researchers at Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, disprove the prevailing theory of how DNA binds itself. It is not, as is generally believed, hydrogen bonds which bind together the two sides of the DNA structure. Instead, water is the key. The discovery opens doors for new understanding in research in medicine and life sciences. The researchers\u2019 findings are presented in the journal <em>PNAS<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>DNA is constructed of two strands, consisting of sugar molecules and phosphate groups. Between these two strands are nitrogen bases, the compounds which make up organisms\u2019 genes, with hydrogen bonds between them. Until now, it was commonly thought that those hydrogen bonds were what held the two strands together.<\/p>\n<p>But now, researchers from Chalmers University of Technology show that the secret to DNA\u2019s helical structure may be that the molecules have a hydrophobic interior, in an environment consisting mainly of water. The environment is therefore hydrophilic, while the DNA molecules\u2019 nitrogen bases are hydrophobic, pushing away the surrounding water. When hydrophobic units are in a hydrophilic environment, they group together, to minimize their exposure to the water.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Researchers at Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, disprove the prevailing theory of how DNA binds itself. It is not, as is generally believed, hydrogen bonds which bind together the two sides of the DNA structure. Instead, water is the key. The discovery opens doors for new understanding in research in medicine and life sciences. The [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":396,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-96573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/396"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96573"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96573\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}