5-carbon sugar

nitrogenous compound "base"

one or more phosphate group

Ribose (RNA)

Deoxyribose (DNA)

Pyrimidines

Purines

Uracil

Thymine

Cytosine

Adenine 

Guanine

All are weak bases and insoluble in water at physiological pH.

Bond with cations (transcription factors, DNA replication factors)

B-DNA

Diameter of 2.37 nm

Rise of helix is 0.33 nm

Pitch of helix is 3.40 nm

Stacking interactions (Van der waals)

Hydrogen bonds

Hydrophobic effects

Charge-Charge

Ribosomal RNA

-part of the ribosome

-MOST abundant ~80% of total RNA

Transfer RNA

-Carry activated amino acids for protein synthesis

messenger RNA

-encode the amino acids that make protein

Catalytic activity

RNA splicing

Secondary structure

-SINGLE STRANDED polynucleotides RNA can form these

-Folds back on itself to form a stable structure

-essential for tRNA

-short stretches of complementary sequence form base pairs (h-bonds)

DNA packaged with protein

Major chromatin proteins

Highly conserved

Composed of

-1 molecule of H1

2 molecules of H2A, H2B, H3, H4

-200bp DNA

Each strand of DNA acts as a template for synthesis of new strand

Daughter DNA contains 1 Parent and 1 New Strand

Double stranded

Polarity 5'-3'

Anti-parallel strands

Complementary base-pairing

1. Initiation at replication origin

2. Elongation stage

3. Termination