What Does a Mole of DNA Look, Smell, and Feel Like?

[pivoxa15]

What would a mole of mammal DNA look like? Smell like? Feel like?

How about a mole of plant DNA?

 

[tandoorichicken]

To have a mole of something you need a finite number of regular molecules. 6.022*10^23 to be exact. DNA comes in long chains or little snippets, and depending on its nucleotide makeup would come in different molecular weights even if it was of uniform length. So I don't know if you can even have a 'mole of DNA' in the general sense.

 

[chroot]

When it's extracted from cells in preparation for sequencing or PCR, it looks a lot like, well, snot.

- Warren

 

[tandoorichicken]

In regards to looking like snot, I don't think there would be much difference between plant and animal DNA. Feels? Probably slimey.

 

[pivoxa15]

To have a mole of something you need a finite number of regular molecules. 6.022*10^23 to be exact. DNA comes in long chains or little snippets, and depending on its nucleotide makeup would come in different molecular weights even if it was of uniform length. So I don't know if you can even have a 'mole of DNA' in the general sense.

So maybe I should have stated a mole of human DNA and a mole of cauliflower DNA. Because each species have very similar DNA and each cell in an individual entity such as human have the same length, size DNA but only choose to read a segment of it (This DNA was formed when the person first formed and became a zygote cell). How many moles of cells in a human? So it should be attainable.

 

[chroot]

pivoxa,

DNA is molecule with variable length. Some pieces of DNA are quite long, while some can be quite short. Thus, it makes no sense to talk about "a dozen DNA," nor does it make sense to talk about "a mole of DNA."

Either way, your question is just asking about the physical qualities of a large amount of pure DNA, and doesn't really depend on the interpretation of the word "mole."

- Warren

 

[pivoxa15]

When it's extracted from cells in preparation for sequencing or PCR, it looks a lot like, well, snot.

- Warren

What colour?

Do most single type proteins in mass look like this?

 

[pivoxa15]

pivoxa,

DNA is molecule with variable length. Some pieces of DNA are quite long, while some can be quite short. Thus, it makes no sense to talk about "a dozen DNA," nor does it make sense to talk about "a mole of DNA."

Either way, your question is just asking about the physical qualities of a large amount of pure DNA, and doesn't really depend on the interpretation of the word "mole."

- Warren

So just say in a human, you say there are many different types of DNA? Is that because there are 23 pairs of different chromosomes and the DNA in them are different? Are all these different types present in the zygote cell? How many different types are there?

 

[chroot]

It's a cloudy whitish color.

- Warren

 

[chroot]

So just say in a human, you say there are many different types of DNA? Is that because there are 23 pairs of different chromosomes and the DNA in them are different? Are all these different types present in the zygote cell? How many different types are there?

There are 23 pairs of chromosomes, each of different length, and the code carried by each is indeed different. Furthermore, when you extract DNA, you necessarily damage it. What you end up with is not 23 pairs of nice tidy complete DNA strands -- you end up with a mush of millions of broken pieces of DNA of all different lengths. Then you use a gene sequencing machine (and a supercomputer) to fit the jigsaw puzzle back together again.

- Warren

 

[arildno]

It's a cloudy whitish color.

- Warren

Isn't snot green by definition?

 

[chroot]

Isn't snot green by definition?

Only if you've got a cold, I think.

- Warren

 

[jim mcnamara]

"green" means sinusitis. arildno - do you have some kind of perennial infection?

 

[arildno]

"green" means sinusitis. arildno - do you have some kind of perennial infection?

Not really. At other times, thiough, I would call it "icky-stuff-from-the-nose", rather than "snot".

 

[Phobos]

When it's extracted from cells in preparation for sequencing or PCR, it looks a lot like, well, snot.

The PBS documentary "Journey of Man" by Spencer Wells shows this in one scene. (great show, BTW)

 

[Moonbear]

When it's extracted from cells in preparation for sequencing or PCR, it looks a lot like, well, snot.

- Warren

Maybe dried snot. If there are no salts or proteins contaminating the preparation, it's actually darned hard to see when completely isolated. Usually just a clear-ish speck on the bottom of the tube that you can only be sure is there when you start reconstituting it with water and see where the water flow changes (in the 10-100 microgram range...how many moles would depend on the size of the DNA strand, which varies with species, but a LOT). Salts in your preparation will leave the pellet looking a bit cloudier...easier to see, but not pure (and then the folks that do the sequencing for you yell at you and send it back to be purified better ).

 

[jim mcnamara]

Moonbear - the voice of experience?

 

[Monique]

Maybe dried snot. If there are no salts or proteins contaminating the preparation, it's actually darned hard to see when completely isolated. Usually just a clear-ish speck on the bottom of the tube that you can only be sure is there when you start reconstituting it with water and see where the water flow changes (in the 10-100 microgram range...how many moles would depend on the size of the DNA strand, which varies with species, but a LOT). Salts in your preparation will leave the pellet looking a bit cloudier...easier to see, but not pure (and then the folks that do the sequencing for you yell at you and send it back to be purified better ).

That is after you have spun it down. When you lyse cells and the DNA is released, you get very long snotty fibers of DNA. Samples of genomic DNA that have a high concentration can be hard to pipet because of the snotty nature of the sample.

 

[Moonbear]

That is after you have spun it down. When you lyse cells and the DNA is released, you get very long snotty fibers of DNA. Samples of genomic DNA that have a high concentration can be hard to pipet because of the snotty nature of the sample.

Oops, I realized that I've only dealt with plasmid DNA (to ultimately use as templates for making probes for in situ hybridization), and throw away the snotty genomic DNA in everything I do, so forgot about what that part looks like; I have better recollection of those stubborn pellets.

 

[tandoorichicken]

I'm really digging our highly intellectual discussions of snot.

 

[selfAdjoint]

I'm really digging our highly intellectual discussions of snot.

You would prefer disordered fragments of long chain complexes?

 

[physics girl phd]

DNA snippets also have liquid crystal states, when in the DNA is at high concentration in water... those solutions are pretty in optical microscopy... there is some dependency of the optical microscopy on the helicity, temp, concentration, etc. I have some friends preparing a publication.

but yeah -- by itself... whitish snot.