Nucleotide Structure & the Phosphodiester Bond (AQA A Level Biology)

Nucleotide Structure & the Phosphodiester Bond

• Both DNA and RNA are polymers that are made up of many repeating units called nucleotides

• Each nucleotide is formed from:

  • A pentose sugar (a sugar with 5 carbon atoms)

  • A nitrogen-containing organic base

  • A phosphate group

The basic structure of a nucleotide

DNA nucleotides

• The components of a DNA nucleotide are:

  • A deoxyribose sugar with hydrogen at the 2' position

  • A phosphate group

  • One of four nitrogenous bases - adenine (A), cytosine(C), guanine(G) or thymine(T)

RNA nucleotides

• The components of an RNA nucleotide are:

  • A ribose sugar with a hydroxyl (OH) group at the 2' position

  • A phosphate group

  • One of four nitrogenous bases - adenine (A), cytosine(C), guanine(G) or uracil (U)

• The presence of the 2' hydroxyl group makes RNA more susceptible to hydrolysis

  • This is why DNA is the storage molecule and RNA is the transport molecule with a shorter molecular lifespan

An RNA nucleotide (top) compared with a DNA nucleotide (bottom)

Purines & Pyrimidines

• The nitrogenous base molecules that are found in the nucleotides of DNA (A, T, C, G) and RNA (A, U, C, G) occur in two structural forms: purines and pyrimidines

• The bases adenine and guanine are purines – they have a double ring structure

• The bases cytosine, thymine and uracil are pyrimidines – they have a single ring structure

The molecular structures of purines and pyrimidines are slightly different

Nucleotide Structure Table

Phosphodiester bonds

• DNA and RNA are polymers (polynucleotides), meaning that they are made up of many nucleotides joined together in long chains

• Separate nucleotides are joined via condensation reactions

  • These condensation reactions occur between the phosphate group of one nucleotide and the pentose sugar of the next nucleotide

• A condensation reaction between two nucleotides forms a phosphodiester bond

  • It is called a phosphodiester bond because it consists of a phosphate group and two ester bonds (phosphate with double bond oxygen attached - oxygen - carbon)

• The chain of alternating phosphate groups and pentose sugars produced as a result of many phosphodiester bonds is known as the sugar-phosphate backbone (of the DNA or RNA molecule)

A section of a single polynucleotide strand showing a phosphodiester bond (and the positioning of the two ester bonds and the phosphate group that make up the phosphodiester bond)