MOLECULAR MODELS FOR NUCLEIC ACIDS

摘要

Molecular models for use in constructing, and experimenting with, the different secondary and tertiary structures of polynucleotides, using specially designed plastic blocks representing mononucleotides, are described. These models are composed of blocks that can be both assembled in vertical stacks to illustrate single-stranded, random coil, polynucleotides and joined in horizontal pairs to illustrate hydrogen-bonded nucleotide pairs. A combination of both these manners of assembly would illustrate double-stranded right-handed, helical polynucleotides whose strands were of opposite polarity.