Question

What three parts make up a single nucleotide

Answer 1

A nucleotide is made up of three parts: a nitrogenous base, a pentose sugar, and a phosphate group. These components form the building blocks of DNA and RNA, with the sugar being deoxyribose in DNA and ribose in RNA.

Step-by-step explanation:

A single nucleotide, which is the basic building block of DNA and RNA, consists of three fundamental parts:

1. A nitrogenous base, which is an organic molecule containing nitrogen and is the part of the nucleotide that can be a purine or pyrimidine. Purines have a double ring structure, including adenine (A) and guanine (G), while pyrimidines have a single ring structure, including cytosine (C), thymine (T), and uracil (U) - with uracil found only in RNA.
2. A pentose sugar, which is a five-carbon sugar. In DNA, the sugar is deoxyribose, and in RNA, it is ribose. The difference is that deoxyribose has one less oxygen atom than ribose.
3. A phosphate group, which consists of one phosphorus atom bonded to four oxygen atoms and is responsible for linking the nucleotides together to form the nucleic acid chain via phosphodiester bonds.

Together, these components form the monomers that combine to make up the polynucleotide chains of DNA and RNA.

Answer 2

There are just 3 components of nucleotide: nitrogenous base, deoxyribose(sugar) and phosphate group. In DNA, complementary nitrogen bases on opposite strands are connected with hydrogen bond. This is how two DNA strands are held together.