DNA
Science & Engineering abbreviation · Biology
| Stands for | Deoxyribonucleic acid |
|---|---|
| Categories | Science & Engineering |
DNA stands for Deoxyribonucleic acid, a biology abbreviation.
The molecule that carries genetic instructions in nearly all living things: two strands of nucleotides wound into a double helix, with the bases adenine, thymine, guanine and cytosine pairing A-T and G-C. A single human cell holds about 3 billion base pairs per genome copy, roughly 2 meters of DNA if stretched out.
Example: Investigators matched DNA from the crime scene to the suspect using 20 standard markers.
Usage notes
Swiss biochemist Friedrich Miescher isolated "nuclein" from white blood cells in 1869. Oswald Avery's team showed in 1944 that DNA carries hereditary information, and James Watson and Francis Crick proposed the double helix in 1953, drawing on X-ray data from Rosalind Franklin and Maurice Wilkins; Watson, Crick and Wilkins shared the 1962 Nobel Prize. Pronounced as letters. "In our DNA" is now a common figure of speech for something fundamental.
Related abbreviations
More biology abbreviations
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- CFU – Colony-forming unit
- CHO – Chinese hamster ovary (cells)
- CRISPR – Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats
- cryo-EM – Cryogenic electron microscopy
- DAPI – 4',6-diamidino-2-phenylindole
- dNTP – Deoxynucleoside triphosphate
- EC – Enzyme Commission number
- ECM – Extracellular matrix
- ELISA – Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay
- ER – Endoplasmic reticulum
- ESC – Embryonic stem cell