Heavy strand

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The DNA in plasmids, circular assemblies of DNA in bacteria and mitochondria, consist of two strands of DNA. These are called the heavy strand (or H-strand) and the light strand (or L-strand) respectively. The two strands have different masses since one will have a higher proportion of heavier nucleic acids and its complement a lower proportion. The strands when separated can be segregated due to this difference.