Nucleotides and Nucleic Acids: Nucleotides Are Phosphorylated Nucleosides. A Nucleoside Is A

Nucleotides are the building blocks that constitute the RNA
biopolymers found within living cells, messenger RNA (mRNA),

transfer RNA (tRNA), ribosomal RNA (rRNA), and long and small
noncoding RNAs.
Nucleotides are phosphorylated nucleosides. A nucleoside is a
combination of a nucleic acid base and a sugar. ATP is a
nucleotide that participates in numerous energy transduction
reactions. NTPs are the ultimate building blocks of nucleic acids.
Nucleic acid polymerases are referred to as pols. In mammalian
cells, ribonucleotides are converted to deoxyribonucleotides at the
NDP level. DNA and RNA are structurally similar polymers.
Nucleoside monophosphates are converted to their respective di-
and triphosphate derivatives via phosphoryl transfer from
ATP. Nucleotides can be synthesized from small organic
molecules, and they are conserved through salvage pathways.
consist of a nucleic acid base attached to a sugar-phosphate

backbone. RNA is made of long sections of
specific nucleotides arranged so that their bases carry specific
information.
Nucleotides and Nucleic Acids

Both DNA and RNA are known as nucleic acids. They have been given this name
for the simple reason that they are made up of structures called nucleotides. Those
nucleotides, themselves comprising a number of components, bond together to
form the double-helix first discovered by the scientists James Watson and Francis
Crick in 1956. This discovery won the two scientists the Nobel Prize. For now,
when we discuss nucleic acids you should assume we are discussing DNA rather
than RNA, unless otherwise specified.
Nucleotides
A nucleotide consists of three things:
1. A nitrogenous base, which can be either adenine, guanine, cytosine, or thymine (in
the case of RNA, thymine is replaced by uracil).
2. A five-carbon sugar, called deoxyribose because it is lacking an oxygen group on
one of its carbons.
3. One or more phosphate groups.
The nitrogen bases are pyrimidine in structure and form a bond between their 1'
nitrogen and the 1' -OH group of the deoxyribose. This type of bond is called a
glycosidic bond. The phosphate group forms a bond with the deoxyribose sugar
through an ester bond between one of its negatively charged oxygen groups and
the 5' -OH of the sugar ().
Figure %: A Nucleotide
Nucleic Acids
Nucleotides join together through phosphodiester linkages between the 5' and 3'
carbon atoms to form nucleic acids. The 3' -OH of the sugar group forms a bond
with one of the negatively charged oxygens of the phosphate group attached to the
5' carbon of another sugar. When many of these nucleotide subunits combine, the
result is the large single-stranded polynucleotide or nucleic acid, DNA ()
Figure %: The Nucleic Acid DNA
If you look closely, you can see that the two sides of the nucleic acid strand shown
above are different, resulting in polarity. At one end of the large molecule, the
carbon group is unbound and at the other end, the -OH is unbound. These different
ends are called the 5'- and 3'-ends, respectively.
The Helical Structure of DNA
shows a single strand of DNA. However, as stated earlier, DNA exists as a double-
helix, meaning two strands of DNA bind together.
Figure %: Double-helical DNA
As seen above, one strand is oriented in the 5' to 3' direction while the
complementary strand runs in the 3' to 5' direction. Because the two strands are
oppositely oriented, they are said to be anti-parallel to each other. The two strands
bond through their nitrogen bases (marked A, C, G, or T for adenine, cytosine, and
guanine). Note that adenine only bonds with thymine, and cytosine only bonds with
guanine. The nitrogen bases are held together by hydrogen bonds: adenine and
thymine form two hydrogen bonds; cytosine and guanine form three hydrogen
bonds.
An important thing to remember about the structure of the DNA helix is that as a
result of anti-parallel pairing, the nitrogen base groups face the inside of the helix
while the sugar and phosphate groups face outward. The sugar and phosphate
groups in the helix therefore make up the phosphate backbone of DNA. The
backbone is highly negatively charged as a result of the phosphate groups.
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Nucleotides are the building blocks that constitute the RNA

biopolymers found within living cells, messenger RNA (mRNA),

consist of a nucleic acid base attached to a sugar-phosphate

Nucleotides and Nucleic Acids

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