Avery, MacLeod, and McCarty proved that DNA is required for the transformation of bacteria. Some of the salient features are that the two strands that make up the double helix are complementary and anti-parallel in nature.

Deoxyribose sugars and phosphates form the backbone of the structure, and the nitrogenous bases are stacked inside. DNA was first isolated from white blood cells by Friedrich Miescher, who called it nuclein because it was isolated from nuclei.

salient features — that the two strands that make up the double helix are complementary and anti-parallel in nature. transformation — process in which external DNA is taken up by a cell. leading strand — strand that is synthesized continuously in the 5'-3' direction which is synthesized in the direction of the replication fork. primer — short stretch of nucleotides that is required to initiate replication; in the case of replication, the primer has RNA nucleotides.