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L-Ribose Fischer Projection. Ribose is a simple sugar and carbohydrate with molecular formula C 5 H 10 O 5 and the linear-form composition H−(C=O)−(CHOH) 4 −H. The naturally occurring form, d-ribose, is a component of the ribonucleotides from which RNA is built, and so this compound is necessary for coding, decoding, regulation and expression of genes.
Nucleosides are glycosylamines that can be thought of as nucleotides without a phosphate group.A nucleoside consists simply of a nucleobase (also termed a nitrogenous base) and a five-carbon sugar (ribose or 2'-deoxyribose) whereas a nucleotide is composed of a nucleobase, a five-carbon sugar, and one or more phosphate groups.
Deoxyribose, or more precisely 2-deoxyribose, is a monosaccharide with idealized formula H−(C=O)−(CH 2)−(CHOH) 3 −H. Its name indicates that it is a deoxy sugar, meaning that it is derived from the sugar ribose by loss of a hydroxy group. Discovered in 1929 by Phoebus Levene, [2] deoxyribose is most notable for its presence in DNA.
Nucleic acid types differ in the structure of the sugar in their nucleotides–DNA contains 2'-deoxyribose while RNA contains ribose (where the only difference is the presence of a hydroxyl group). Also, the nucleobases found in the two nucleic acid types are different: adenine , cytosine , and guanine are found in both RNA and DNA, while ...
At the sides of nucleic acid structure, phosphate molecules successively connect the two sugar-rings of two adjacent nucleotide monomers, thereby creating a long chain biomolecule. These chain-joins of phosphates with sugars ( ribose or deoxyribose ) create the "backbone" strands for a single- or double helix biomolecule.
The base is always bonded to the 1'-carbon of the deoxyribose, an analog of ribose in which the hydroxyl group of the 2'-carbon is replaced with a hydrogen atom. The third component, the phosphoryl group, attaches to the deoxyribose monomer via the hydroxyl group on the 5'-carbon of the sugar.
The general structure of a ribonucleotide consists of a phosphate group, a ribose sugar group, and a nucleobase, in which the nucleobase can either be adenine, guanine, cytosine, or uracil. Without the phosphate group, the composition of the nucleobase and sugar is known as a nucleoside.
It is not always the case that the structure of a molecule is easy to relate to its function. What makes the structure of DNA so obviously related to its function was described modestly at the end of the article: "It has not escaped our notice that the specific pairing we have postulated immediately suggests a possible copying mechanism for the genetic material".