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Four of these elements (hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen) are essential to every living thing and collectively make up 99% of the mass of protoplasm. [1] Phosphorus and sulfur are also common essential elements, essential to the structure of nucleic acids and amino acids, respectively.
Sulfur is contained in the amino acids cysteine and methionine. [3] Phosphorus is contained in phospholipids , a class of lipids that are a major component of all cell membranes , as they can form lipid bilayers , which keep ions , proteins , and other molecules where they are needed for cell function, and prevent them from diffusing into areas ...
The structure was reported in a letter titled "MOLECULAR STRUCTURE OF NUCLEIC ACIDS A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid ", in which they said, "It has not escaped our notice that the specific pairing we have postulated immediately suggests a possible copying mechanism for the genetic material."
Nucleic acids RNA (left) and DNA (right). Nucleic acids are large biomolecules that are crucial in all cells and viruses. [1] They are composed of nucleotides, which are the monomer components: a 5-carbon sugar, a phosphate group and a nitrogenous base. The two main classes of nucleic acids are deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and ribonucleic acid ...
In the phosphodiester bonds of nucleic acids, a phosphate is attached to the 5' carbon of one nucleoside and to the 3' carbon of the adjacent nucleoside. Specifically, it is the phosphodiester bonds that link the 3' carbon atom of one sugar molecule and the 5' carbon atom of another (hence the name 3', 5' phosphodiester linkage used with ...
Nucleic acid structure refers to the structure of nucleic acids such as DNA and RNA. Chemically speaking, DNA and RNA are very similar. Chemically speaking, DNA and RNA are very similar. Nucleic acid structure is often divided into four different levels: primary, secondary, tertiary, and quaternary.
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".
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.