ShmoopTube

00:04

And here’s your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by glue.

00:07

Perpetually living in the shadow of super glue…what a show off. [people staring at super glue wearing a superman costume]

00:11

Here’s our question.

00:13

Helicase….what?

00:15

And here are the potential answers. [mumbling]

00:20

Okay, first things first – whenever you see something ending in “ase”––that’s

00:26

a-s-e––in biology land, an alarm bell should go off in your head. [alarm bell sounding in a persons head]

00:30

…Maybe not an alarm bell.

00:32

Maybe just a “ding” or something. [a hand ringing a bell on someones head]

00:34

Either way, whenever you see something ending in “ase,” it’s probably an enzyme.

00:38

And usually, you can figure out what the enzyme’s job is by what comes before the “ase.” [enzyme looking for food]

00:44

For example, DNA polymerase adds the new bases to the DNA when the DNA is being copied. [DNA polymerase DJ'in at a club]

00:51

Which is basically just a fancy way of saying synthesizes, which is basically a fancy way

00:56

of saying we can eliminate B. Likewise, DNA ligase is the enzyme that ligates, [DNA ligase trying to stick two DNA fragments together]

01:01

or glues together, fragments of DNA.

01:04

Though we’re pretty sure a glue stick would do the trick, too.

01:06

So it’s not C. That leaves us with A and D.

01:09

The structure of DNA is a double helix. [A DNA double helix structure]

01:13

And if we take a look at the word in question…heli…case…

01:18

Probably has something to do with a helix, right?

01:20

Ding, ding, ding. [hand ringing a bell]

01:21

…Way more pleasant than an alarm, right?

01:24

Helicase is the enzyme that unwinds and separates DNA strands. Bit like when your mom does that with your socks.[Helicase unwinding the DNA helix and Mom unwinds socks]

01:31

Which means A is our answer.

01:33

And if you’re having trouble keeping that in mind, just remember: helicase is the enzyme

01:37

that unzips your genes. [Boys jeans unzip and people laugh]

01:39

Little forward of it, don’t you think?

Full Transcript