Structure of a Nucleotide

Nucleotides are structures that are the building blocks of DNA and RNA. Basically DNA and RNA are made up of many nucleotides. Nucleotides are made up of 3 parts. These are:

1. a phosphate group

2. a 5 carbon sugar

        *We call this a pentose sugar. “pent” means 5 hence the name pentose sugar

         *In DNA the sugar is a deoxyribose sugar while in RNA the sugar is a ribose sugar

3. a nitrogenous base

         *In DNA the nitrogenous bases are adenine, thymine, cytosine and guanine

         *In RNA the nitrogenous bases are adenine, uracil, cytosine and guanine