DNA, Deoxyribonucleic acid, is known as the carrier of huge amounts of information about genes. This simple acid made of phosphate, sugar and four nucleic acids is the reason for life as we know it. In this series of articles - or consider it an online text book - I am going to cover everything from DNA components, DNA replication to the role of RNA.
Without further to do I am going to jump right in.

Nucleic Acids - The genetic carriers

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Nucleic acids are macromolecules that store genetic information. They provide the fundamental instructions for building proteins and are thus vital for life. Nucleic acids are made of monomers which are called nucleotides which together form linear polymers. Each monomer consists of one:

• 5-carbon sugar (DNA: C5H10O / RNA: C5H10O2)
• Phosphate group
• Out of 4 nitrogenous bases
  

A phosphate group, a 5-carbon sugar and a base, in this case Guanine

The 4 Bases

The sugar and the phosphate group are constantly there. The only thing that varies are the 4 Base pairs. With DNA we have Cytosine and Guanine which pair together and Thymine and Adenine which pair together. In the RNA molecule we have Uracil instead of Thymine but the rest is the same. The simple structure of Nucleic acids make them perfect for transfering information. The similarities between DNA and RNA are also very important. More to this in the next chapter.

Together all these relative simple bases form long DNA and RNA.

In the next article we are going to look at what role DNA plays in producing proteins and why it is so important for understanding life in a biological sense.

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All pictures are Creative Commons from Wikimedia.

Regards,
Caspar