Chapter 28: Nucleosides, Nucleotides and Nucleic Acids
Nucleotides
Nucleotides are the 5'-phosphate esters nucleosides.
Phosphate esters are esters of phosphoric acid, H
3
PO
4
Remember an ester has an alkoxy group, -
OR
, whereas an acid has a hydroxy group, -
OH
.
Nucleotides contain three structural subunits, a nitrogen base, a carbohydrate and a phosphate ester.
DNA
and
RNA
nucleotides are different because of :
different carbohydrate unit
different bases
pyrimidine base
= adenine
carbohydrate
= ribose
phosphate esters
= 1 unit
Adenosine 5'-monophosphate (AMP)
