Nucleic acids are polynucleotides—that is, long chainlike molecules composed of a series of nearly identical building blocks called nucleotides. Each nucleotide consists of a nitrogen-containing aromatic base attached to a pentose (five-carbon) sugar, which is in turn attached to a phosphate group.
What are the three subunits of a nucleotide?
A nucleotide consists of three things:
- A nitrogenous base, which can be either adenine, guanine, cytosine, or thymine (in the case of RNA, thymine is replaced by uracil).
- A five-carbon sugar, called deoxyribose because it is lacking an oxygen group on one of its carbons.
- One or more phosphate groups.
What are the three main components of a nucleotide?
There are only three components to a nucleotide:
- A sugar (called deoxyribose)
- A Phosphate (1 phosphorus atom joined to 4 oxygen atoms)
- One of 4 bases (Adenine, Guanine, Cytosine, Thymine)