Nucleic Acids

Are the information molecules of cells

• There are two types-
  • Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA)
  • Ribonucleic acid (RNA)

Nucleotides - nucleic acids are built up from repeating units called nucleotides

• A Nitrogenous Base - Either Cytosine, Guanine, Andenine, Thymine or Uracil
• A Pentose Sugar - Either Ribose or Deoxyribose
• Phosphoric Acid / Phosphate

• Nucleotides join together by condensation reactions
• A nucleic acid is a very long, thread like macromolecule
• Alternating sugar and phosphate groups form the backbone to the nucleic acid, with an nitrogenous base attached to each sugar along the strand

RNA

• Molecules are shorter
• Nucelotides conatin ribose
• Bases are Cystosine, Gyanine, Adenine and Uracil
• Is always a single strand
• Three funtional types messenger (mRNA), transfer (tRNA) and ribosomal (rRNA)
• All three use infor from the nucleus in the construction of proteins by the ribosomes

DNA

• Very longs strands
• Occur in the chromosomes
• Nucleotides conatin Deoxyribose
• Bases are Cystosine, Gyanine, Adenine and Thymine
• Two polynucleotide strands paired together, held by hydrogen bonds and form a double helix
• Complimentary base pairing (CG and AT)