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Base Pair

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Encyclopedia of Animal Cognition and Behavior

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Synonyms

DNA; Nitrogenous base

Definition

A base pair is a unit of the DNA double helix structure.

Introduction

A very important unit of DNA is the base pair (bp) which is formed between two nucleobases. Nucleobases are nitrogenous biological compounds and form nucleoside which is component of nucleotide. Nucleotides are monomer units of the nucleic acid polymers DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) and RNA (ribonucleic acid). Nucleotides are composed of three subunit molecules: a nitrogenous base, a five-carbon sugar (ribose or deoxyribose), and a phosphate group; while the nucleosides (such as cytidine, uridine, adenosine, guanosine, thymidine, and inosine) are nucleotides without a phosphate group (Alberts et al. 2002; Zhurkin et al. 2005). The nucleobases are bound to each other by hydrogen bonds to synthesize the building blocks of the DNA double helix and contribute to the folded structure of both DNA and RNA.

Base pairs through specific hydrogen bonding patterns allow the DNA helix to...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Botany, Institute of Science, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, 221005, India

    Prashant Swapnil & Mukesh Meena

Authors
  1. Prashant Swapnil
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  2. Mukesh Meena
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Mukesh Meena .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Oakland University , Rochester, Michigan, USA

    Jennifer Vonk

  2. Department of Psychology, Oakland University Department of Psychology, Rochester, Michigan, USA

    Todd Shackelford

Section Editor information

  1. Centre for Neural and Cognitive Sciences, School of Medical Sciences, University of Hyderabad, 500046, Hyderabad, Telangana, India

    Akash Gautam

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© 2018 Springer International Publishing AG

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Swapnil, P., Meena, M. (2018). Base Pair. In: Vonk, J., Shackelford, T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Animal Cognition and Behavior. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47829-6_39-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47829-6_39-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-47829-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-47829-6

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