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Grade 12Physical Chemistry

Why two strands of DNA are not identical but are complimentary to each other ?

Profile image of sudhanshu
12 Years agoGrade 12
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1 Answer

Profile image of Anjali Ahuja
11 Years ago
This is possible because each nitrogenous base in one strand pairs only with one other base in the complementary strand as follows:

Adenine (A) always pairs with Thymine (T)

Guanine (G) always pairs with Cytosine (C)

So, if one looks at a single strand of DNA, one can reconstruct the sequence of the complementary strand from the original strand.