2nd October 2019

britannica
16

What are the building blocks of nucleic acids?

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)
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