The specific carrier of the genetic information in all organisms is the nucleic acid known as DNA, short for deoxyribonucleic acid. DNA is a double helix, two molecular coils wrapped around each other and chemically bound one to another by bonds connecting adjacent bases. Each long ladderlike DNA helix has a backbone that consists of a sequence of alternating sugars and phosphates. Attached to each sugar is a “base” consisting of the nitrogen-containing compound adenine, guanine, cytosine, or thymine. Each sugar-phosphate-base “rung” is called a nucleotide. A very significant one-to-one pairing between bases occurs that ensures the connection of adjacent helices. Once the sequence of bases along one helix (half the ladder) has been specified, the sequence along the other half is also specified. The specificity of base pairing plays a key role in the replication of the DNA molecule. Each helix makes an identical copy of the other from molecular building blocks in the cell. These nucleic acid replication events are mediated by enzymes called DNA polymerases. With the aid of enzymes, DNA can be produced in the laboratory.

The cell, whether bacterial or nucleated, is the minimal unit of life. Many of the fundamental properties of cells are a function of their nucleic acids, their proteins, and the interactions among these molecules bounded by active membranes. Within the nuclear regions of cells is a mélange of twisted and interwoven fine threads, the chromosomes. Chromosomes by weight are composed of 50–60 percent protein and 40–50 percent DNA. During cell division, in all cells but those of bacteria (and some ancestral protists), the chromosomes display an elegantly choreographed movement, separating so that each offspring of the original cell receives an equal complement of chromosomal material. This pattern of segregation corresponds in all details to the theoretically predicted pattern of segregation of the genetic material implied by the fundamental genetic laws (see heredity). The chromosome combination of the DNA and the proteins (histone or protamine) is called nucleoprotein. The DNA stripped of its protein is known to carry genetic information and to determine details of proteins produced in the cytoplasm of cells; the proteins in nucleoprotein regulate the shape, behaviour, and activities of the chromosomes themselves.

The other major nucleic acid is ribonucleic acid (RNA). Its five-carbon sugar is slightly different from that of DNA. Thymine, one of the four bases that make up DNA, is replaced in RNA by the base uracil. RNA appears in a single-stranded form rather than a double. Proteins (including all enzymes), DNA, and RNA have a curiously interconnected relation that appears ubiquitous in all organisms on Earth today. RNA, which can replicate itself as well as code for protein, may be older than DNA in the history of life.

Chemistry in common

The genetic code was first broken in the 1960s. Three consecutive nucleotides (base-sugar-phosphate rungs) are the code for one amino acid of a protein molecule. By controlling the synthesis of enzymes, DNA controls the functioning of the cell. Of the four different bases taken three at a time, there are 4³, or 64, possible combinations. The meaning of each of these combinations, or codons, is known. Most of them represent one of the 20 particular amino acids found in protein. A few of them represent punctuation marks—for example, instructions to start or stop protein synthesis. Some of the code is called degenerate. This term refers to the fact that more than one nucleotide triplet may specify a given amino acid. This nucleic acid–protein interaction underlies living processes in all organisms on Earth today. Not only are these processes the same in all cells of all organisms, but even the particular “dictionary” that is used for the transcription of DNA information into protein information is essentially the same. Moreover, this code has various chemical advantages over other conceivable codes. The complexity, ubiquity, and advantages argue that the present interactions among proteins and nucleic acids are themselves the product of a long evolutionary history. They must interact as a single reproductive, autopoietic system that has not failed since its origin. The complexity reflects time during which natural selection could accrue variations; the ubiquity reflects a reproductive diaspora from a common genetic source; and the advantages, such as the limited number of codons, may reflect an elegance born of use. DNA’s “staircase” structure allows for easy increases in length. At the time of the origin of life, this complex replication and transcription apparatus could not have been in operation. A fundamental problem in the origin of life is the question of the origin and early evolution of the genetic code.

Many other commonalities exist among organisms on Earth. Only one class of molecules stores energy for biological processes until the cell has use for it; these molecules are all nucleotide phosphates. The most common example is adenosine triphosphate (ATP). For the very different function of energy storage, a molecule identical to one of the building blocks of the nucleic acids (both DNA and RNA) is employed. Metabolically ubiquitous molecules—flavin adenine dinucleotide (FAD) and coenzyme A—include subunits similar to the nucleotide phosphates. Nitrogen-rich ring compounds, called porphyrins, represent another category of molecules; they are smaller than proteins and nucleic acids and common in cells. Porphyrins are the chemical bases of the heme in hemoglobin, which carries oxygen molecules through the bloodstream of animals and the nodules of leguminous plants. Chlorophyll, the fundamental molecule mediating light absorption during photosynthesis in plants and bacteria, is also a porphyrin. In all organisms on Earth, many biological molecules have the same “handedness” (these molecules can have both “left-” and “right-handed” forms that are mirror images of each other; see below The earliest living systems). Of the billions of possible organic compounds, fewer than 1,500 are employed by contemporary life on Earth, and these are constructed from fewer than 50 simple molecular building blocks.

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Besides chemistry, cellular life has certain supramolecular structures in common. Organisms as diverse as single-celled paramecia and multicellular pandas (in their sperm tails), for example, possess little whiplike appendages called cilia (or flagella, a term that is also used for completely unrelated bacterial structures; the correct generic term is undulipodia). These “moving cell hairs” are used to propel the cells through liquid. The cross-sectional structure of undulipodia shows nine pairs of peripheral tubes and one pair of internal tubes made of proteins called microtubules. These tubules are made of the same protein as that in the mitotic spindle, the structure to which chromosomes are attached in cell division. There is no immediately obvious selective advantage of the 9:1 ratio. Rather, these commonalities indicate that a few functional patterns based on common chemistry are used over and over again by the living cell. The underlying relations, particularly where no obvious selective advantage exists, show all organisms on Earth are related and descended from a very few common cellular ancestors—or perhaps one.