Nucleic acids

Parents

1944?-1958 Methylated bases were discovered in DNA about 20 years ago and in RNA. in 1958. Until recently, however, no one had any idea how methyl groups got to be stuck onto the normally unmethylated bases in nucleic acids or what they were doing there.
1962 The first important break in this problem was reported by Dr. Fleissner and Dr. Borek in 1962 when they showed that the methyl groups became attached to...
But, suppose something got Into a cell and upset the methylation pattern of the nucleic acids there.
Did it mean, for example, that nucleic acids were merely repositories for excess methyl groups drifting around in the cell? Or did the methyl groups serve a useful function of some sort?
DNA
Dr. Borek believes that they function at least in part to determine the three-dimensional, shape of nucleic acid molecules.
International Nucleotide Sequence Database Collaboration (INSDC)
Nucleic acid
Nucleic acid sequence
RNA
They also found that methyl groups are attached to nucleic acids by the action of special protein molecules, called enzymes.
This means that each species has its own set of enzymes that methylate the bases in its nucleic acids in a distinctive way, as though there were some purpose to the process of methylation. But what purpose could methyl groups serve?
Those systems consist of two kinds of nucleic acids. One, deoxyribonucleic acid-or DNA is found mainly in the cell nucleus and is believed to be the genetic material.