WHAT IS DNA?
DNA constitutes our genome. It is a string of four chemicals called nucleotides which are joined together by chemical bonds. These nucleotides comprise four special chemicals, represented by the letters G, A, T, and C. These are the first letters of the chemicals they represent: Guanine, Adenine, Thymine, Cytosine. It is not important to remember their names, just the initials: G, A, T, and C. Thus, the three billion nucleotides that make up our genetic material (DNA) consist of just these four nucleotides arranged in a particular order or sequence, for example ATTGCCGGCTTTTAGAGCCGAT. The nucleotides are linked together by a chemical bond and can be perceived as a very long string. An easy way to understand this is to think of DNA as a big necklace made of beads of four different colors: one color for each nucleotide (GATC). As stated earlier, the three billion nucleotides are not present as one long DNA string but are divided into nucleotide chains present in twenty-three chromosomes.