hw problem. Any help is greatly appreciated

[mar1]

Can someone help me with this hw problem?

If Chargaff determined that the DNA of an organism had 20% G nucleotides, what would he predict about the composition of C, A, and T nucleotides? Explain how you figured this out.

I know that the actual test he concluded that guanine was approx. equal to cytosine and the same with adenine and thynine... the first thing that i thought was ,"would it be G 20% and C 80%" but it doesn't make sense to me.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

[dipjyoti]

Search on google, if don't find then ask.
We do not answer home work question.

Thanks.

[canalon]

Or more nicely the problem has all to do with how the base are associated in DNA.

If you think how it happens, you will realize that knowing the proportion of one of the base, allow you to calculate the proportion of the complementary base X=Y and the proportions of the other 2 Z=W= (100%-(X+Y))/2

[mar1]

thanks for the help, that makes sense.