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AP Biology 2.4 Essential Life Process Information 19 Views
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Description:
AP Biology 2.4 Essential Life Process Information. What does helicase do?
Transcript
- 00:04
And here’s your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by glue.
- 00:07
Perpetually living in the shadow of super glue…what a show off. [people staring at super glue wearing a superman costume]
- 00:11
Here’s our question.
- 00:13
Helicase….what?
- 00:15
And here are the potential answers. [mumbling]
Full Transcript
- 00:20
Okay, first things first – whenever you see something ending in “ase”––that’s
- 00:26
a-s-e––in biology land, an alarm bell should go off in your head. [alarm bell sounding in a persons head]
- 00:30
…Maybe not an alarm bell.
- 00:32
Maybe just a “ding” or something. [a hand ringing a bell on someones head]
- 00:34
Either way, whenever you see something ending in “ase,” it’s probably an enzyme.
- 00:38
And usually, you can figure out what the enzyme’s job is by what comes before the “ase.” [enzyme looking for food]
- 00:44
For example, DNA polymerase adds the new bases to the DNA when the DNA is being copied. [DNA polymerase DJ'in at a club]
- 00:51
Which is basically just a fancy way of saying synthesizes, which is basically a fancy way
- 00:56
of saying we can eliminate B. Likewise, DNA ligase is the enzyme that ligates, [DNA ligase trying to stick two DNA fragments together]
- 01:01
or glues together, fragments of DNA.
- 01:04
Though we’re pretty sure a glue stick would do the trick, too.
- 01:06
So it’s not C. That leaves us with A and D.
- 01:09
The structure of DNA is a double helix. [A DNA double helix structure]
- 01:13
And if we take a look at the word in question…heli…case…
- 01:18
Probably has something to do with a helix, right?
- 01:20
Ding, ding, ding. [hand ringing a bell]
- 01:21
…Way more pleasant than an alarm, right?
- 01:24
Helicase is the enzyme that unwinds and separates DNA strands. Bit like when your mom does that with your socks.[Helicase unwinding the DNA helix and Mom unwinds socks]
- 01:31
Which means A is our answer.
- 01:33
And if you’re having trouble keeping that in mind, just remember: helicase is the enzyme
- 01:37
that unzips your genes. [Boys jeans unzip and people laugh]
- 01:39
Little forward of it, don’t you think?
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