1. The Human Body is said to contain approximately 50.0 grams of DNA in the enti

Question

1. The Human Body is said to contain approximately 50.0 grams of DNA in the entire body. If the number of nucleotides in one strand of DNA is approximately 3.0*10^6, and the average molar mass of a nucleotide is 327 g/mol, what is the average molar mass of an entire DNA double helix?

2. The total mass of DNA in the body is 50.0g. If the number of nucleotides in ONE STRAND of DNA is approximately 3.0*10^6, and the average length of a single nucleotide is 0.34 nm, what is the length (in km) of one strand of DNA when it is stretched out to its maximum length (not in a helix)?

3.   If the average volume of all the blood in a human body is 4700 mL, what is the molarity of DNA in the human blood system?

Thanks!!

Explanation / Answer

Hello, its a plesure to answer your question.

1) To answer this question all you have to do is multiply the number of nucleotides by 2 to get the number of nucleotides in both DNA strands, and then multiply it by the molar mass of each nucleotide, like this:

(3.0x106) x 2 = 6.0x106

(6.0 x 106 )(330) = 1.98x109 g/mol.

2) To get the answer to this question, you have to convert the 0.34 nm of nucleotide lenght to km. As the equivalence between both units is 1nm = 1x10-12 Km, you will have to multiply by 0.34 times that number:

(0.34 nm)(1x10-12) = 3.4 x10-13 Km

And then, multiply the asnwer from that operation, by the number of nucleotide bases in the strand:

(3.4x10-13Km) x (3.0x106) = 1.02x10-6 Km

3.- To calculte molarity in this question, we have to calculate the number of moles of DNA in the body, which is equal to the number of grams of DNA divided by the DNA's molar mass:

50 grams of DNA/1.98x109 g/mol = 2.52x10-8 moles

And then, calculate the molarity with this formula: m = # moles/ liters of solution

molarity = (2.52x10-8 moles) / 4.7 Liters = 5.37 x 10-09 M

Have a nice day.

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