Monday's Molecule #101

 
This is the last Monday's Molecule for 2008. There will be a short Christmas break. Monday's Molecule will return on January 5th. As part of the Christmas celebrations, this week's molecule is a gift.

Your task is to identify this molecule and give it a biochemically accurate name (the IUPAC name would be perfect). The Nobel Laureate should be obvious once you identify the molecule.

The first one to correctly identify the molecule and name the Nobel Laureate, wins a free lunch at the Faculty Club. Previous winners are ineligible for one month from the time they first collected the prize.

There are four ineligible candidates for this week's reward: Ms. Sandwalk from Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, Alex Ling of the University of Toronto, Timothy Evans of the University of Pennsylvania, and John Bothwell of the Marine Biological Association of the UK in Plymouth, UK. John, Dale and Ms. Sandwalk have offered to donate the free lunch to a deserving undergraduate so the next two undergraduates to win and collect a free lunch can also invite a friend. Alex got the first one.

THEME:

Nobel Laureates
Send your guess to Sandwalk (sandwalk (at) bioinfo.med.utoronto.ca) and I'll pick the first email message that correctly identifies the "molecule" and names the Nobel Laureate(s). Note that I'm not going to repeat Nobel Laureate(s) so you might want to check the list of previous Sandwalk postings by clicking on the link in the theme box.

Correct responses will be posted tomorrow. I reserve the right to select multiple winners if several people get it right.

Comments will be blocked for 24 hours. Comments are now open.

UPDATE: The molecule is 2&prime,3′-dideoxycytidine 5′-monophosphate. This molecule differs from the normal cellular version of deoxycytidine because it is missing a second hydroxyl group at the 3′ position on the sugar. The triphosphate version of this molecule is a substrate for DNA polymerase and it will be incorporated into a growing DNA chain. However, once it is incorporated, the polymerization reaction stops because the 3′ hydroxyl group is essential for addition of the next nucleotide.

Dideoxynucleotides are used in the chain termination method of DNA sequencing developed by Frederick Sanger. Sanger received his second Nobel Prize in 1980 for developing this method, which remains the most popular method of DNA sequencing.

I was surprised that only a few people responded and even more surprised that some of the regulars didn't give a correct name for this molecule. There is no winner this week because I am being strict about nomenclature. If you didn't specify where the phosphate is attached (5′) or you used "cytosine" instead of "cytidine," then you don't get a free lunch! (Cytosine is the base, cytidine is the nucleoside.)

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