Structure of Nucleic Acids
- Consists of one or two chains of nucleotides held together by chemical bonds.
- Each individual nucleotide unit consists of three parts:
- A base (containing nitrogen)
- four bases: Adenine, Guanine, Cytosine, and Thymine in DNA, or Uracil in RNA
- A sugar (Deoxyribose in DNA, ribose in RNA)
- A phosphate group (containing phosphorus).
- RNA consists of a single chain of nucleotides; DNA consists of two chains of nucleotides.