Chem4Kids.com: Biochemistry: Nucleic Acids (2024)

FAQs

What are nucleic acids answers? ›

Nucleic acids are naturally occurring chemical compounds that serve as the primary information-carrying molecules in cells. They play an especially important role in directing protein synthesis. The two main classes of nucleic acids are deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and ribonucleic acid (RNA).

Even though all organisms use the same five nucleic acid to build and replicate DNA, it is the order that makes us who we are. You've got the three pyrimidine bases — cytosine, thymine, and uracil — and the two purine bases — adenine and guanine. Every organism on Earth has a different number and order of base pairs.

They are actually made up of chains of base pairs of nucleic acids stretching from as few as three to millions. When those pairs combine in super long chains (DNA), they make a shape called a double helix. The double helix shape is like a twisty ladder. The base pairs are the rungs.

Amino acids have a two-carbon bond. One of the carbons is part of a group called the carboxyl group (COO^-). A carboxyl group is made up of one carbon (C) and two oxygen (O) atoms. That carboxyl group has a negative charge, since it is a carboxylic acid (-COOH) that has lost its hydrogen (H) atom.

Nucleic acids are polymers of nucleotides. These are DNA, RNA and ATP.

The two main types of nucleic acids are DNA and RNA. Both DNA and RNA are made from nucleotides, each containing a five-carbon sugar backbone, a phosphate group, and a nitrogen base. DNA provides the code for the cell 's activities, while RNA converts that code into proteins to carry out cellular functions.

Nucleic acids are made of nucleotides, which have three main components, a sugar, phosphate, and a base. The sugar used depends on the nucleic acid. DNA uses the sugar deoxyribose, whereas RNA uses the sugar ribose. All nucleic acids have a phosphate.

Nucleic acids, macromolecules made out of units called nucleotides, come in two naturally occurring varieties: deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and ribonucleic acid (RNA). DNA is the genetic material found in living organisms, all the way from single-celled bacteria to multicellular mammals like you and me.

To summarize, the simplest unit of a nucleic acid is a nucleotide. It consists of a sugar molecule (ribose or deoxyribose), a phosphate group, and a nitrogenous base (adenine, thymine, cytosine, guanine, or uracil).

Nucleic acids contain the same elements as proteins: carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen; plus phosphorous (C, H, O, N, and P). Nucleic acids are very large macromolecules composed of repetitive units of the same building blocks, nucleotides, similar to a pearl necklace made of many pearls.

What is the monomer of the nucleic acid? ›

Nucleotides are monomers of nucleic acids, DNA and RNA. A nucleotide is made up of a nitrogenous base (adenine, thymine, guanine, cytosine, or uracil), a phosphate group ( P O 4 3 − ) , and a -carbon sugar.

Although first discovered within the nucleus of eukaryotic cells, nucleic acids are now known to be found in all life forms including within bacteria, archaea, mitochondria, chloroplasts, and viruses (There is debate as to whether viruses are living or non-living).

A nucleic acid is a long molecule made up of smaller molecules called nucleotides. Nucleic acids were discovered in 1868, when twenty-four-year-old Swiss physician Friedrich Miescher isolated a new compound from the nuclei of white blood cells.