illustrating dna

[wayward bob]

in the past i've made models/depictions of molecules, and there are colour conventions at least for the most common atoms - oxygen is red, carbon black, hydrogen white etc...

long shot but does anyone know if there's a similar colour convention for dna base pairs? looking online i'm not finding any obvious kind of agreement...

 

[farmerbarleymow]

I've no idea but I do like the idea.

I downloaded the mighty Y chromosome years back after the human genome was sequenced and coloured the AGCT letters to show what patterns were there - quite intriguing.

 

[bi0boy]

No there isn't any standard colouring. I don't know if you can perhaps indicate some shape and some of the atoms? A and G are a hexagon with a pentagon attached, and T and C are just hexagons. If you can't do that then making A and G "long" and C and T "short" can be useful, so you always have a short paired with a long if that makes sense.

 

[8ball]

Not for the pairings, but for the bases:

http://www.umass.edu/molvis/tutorials/dna/atgc.htm

(just a visualization convention)

 

[wayward bob]

fab thanks 8ball :thumbs :

I don't know if you can perhaps indicate some shape and some of the atoms? A and G are a hexagon with a pentagon attached, and T and C are just hexagons. If you can't do that then making A and G "long" and C and T "short" can be useful, so you always have a short paired with a long if that makes sense.

it's a very schematic image so i can't include much detail, but i like the long/short idea, that could work

 

[wayward bob]

this is gonna feature too

 

[wayward bob]

okay i have a supplementary question. my illustration has space for 18 base pairs. is there anything i can accurately represent in that short a section? would be chuffed if i could say, yeah that's the sequence for x, no matter how obscure :thumbs :

 

[8ball]

6 codons is a bit of an ask.. Maybe spelling out a short word in resultant amino acids?

 

[wayward bob]

cunt short enough?

 

[bi0boy]

Centromere Protein B (CENP-B) binding domain: CTTCGTTGGAAACGGGA

It's a protein that is involved in packaging DNA up so it can fit into cells. The protein recognises this sequence of DNA and binds to it so it can fold it up.

 

[8ball]

cunt short enough?

No 'U' or 'N', sadly.

 

[8ball]

Centromere Protein B (CENP-B) binding domain: CTTCGTTGGAAACGGGA

It's a protein that is involved in packaging DNA up so it can fit into cells. The protein recognises this sequence of DNA and binds to it so it can fold it up.