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Nucleic acids are organic compounds; this means that they contain the element carbon.
Nucleotides are the building blocks of nucleic acids and are what compose nucleic acids, DNA and RNA.
Below is a simple drawing of a nucleotide to help you see its structure.
All nucleotides have this similar structure, but there are some differences between certain nucleotides. You’ll learn more about that when you focus on the structure of DNA and RNA a little bit more.
Within our bodies, DNA contains all of our genetic information. All of our genes, all of the information needed to make all the molecules of our bodies, is contained in our DNA.
DNA has four nitrogen bases: adenine, thymine, cytosine, and guanine. The way that the nitrogen bases pair up within the structure of DNA is very specific. Adenine will always pair up with thymine, and cytosine will always pair up with guanine. DNA is described as being a double helix. Take a look at the image of DNA below.
You’ll notice it is kind of like a ladder that's been twisted. The rungs of the ladder are composed of the four nitrogen bases. If you look at the image above, you can identify where the nucleotides reside in the DNA structure, and how that allows DNA to look like it does. The DNA is made up of the phosphate group, the sugar and the nitrogenous base. The sugar for DNA is deoxyribose sugar; that type of sugar is specific to DNA and is bonded together by a hydrogen bond.
You'll also notice that you have the phosphates and the sugar making the outer part of the double helix. The rungs of the ladder, if you will, are made up of the nitrogen bases bonded by hydrogen bonds.
DNA is different from RNA in the fact that it's double-stranded, has different bases, and includes a deoxyribose sugar.
RNA does carry genetic information, but the genetic information it carries helps to build proteins for our body.
RNA, rather than being double-stranded, is single-stranded; it doesn't have the same structure as DNA does. The image below shows RNA as a single strand.
The sugar in the nucleotides of RNA, rather than being a deoxyribose sugar, is just a ribose sugar.
The nitrogenous bases vary a little in RNA as well. Rather than having adenine, thymine, cytosine, and guanine, RNA has adenine, uracil, cytosine, and guanine. So RNA has uracil in place of thymine.
Source: THIS WORK IS ADAPTED FROM SOPHIA AUTHOR AMANDA SODERLIND