Deoxyribonucleic acid is commonly known as DNA. As you have a recipe for making a food item, DNA is the recipe to make an organism. It is actually the storage of an organism’s genetic code. Thus, you may say that DNA has all the information you may ever require to build a particular organism. That is the reason DNA is also called the blueprint of life. All your body features are defined by the structure of your DNA. It basically tells everything about how to build another you.
Since DNA is the blueprint of your life, it is always unique for you as an individual. There cannot be another person who has an exactly same DNA as yours. The code and instructions in one’s DNA determine his/her functioning and built-up. Based in each cell’s nucleus, there are chromosomes that contain this chemical component called DNA. When stretches of your DNA are created, these are called your genes. A DNA molecule looks like a ladder that is twisted. The sides of this ladder or double helix are composed of phosphates and deoxyribose, while its rungs are made up of nucleotides.
These nucleotides or bases are of four types namely adenine, thymine, guanine and cytosine (together called A, T, G, C). In every DNA, these nucleotides are paired up in a specific manner and ladder rungs are organized in another specific way. Since cells contain innumerable bases, there can be innumerable combinations of these. That is why each organism has a DNA different from another organism. Hence, DNA is one such permanent record of codes of an organism that define his/her formation and composition. It is absolutely right to term DNA as the blueprint of life. It is just like the blueprint of a house that helps a person in constructing an exactly same house as defined.
