Molecule Tutorials - Herong's Tutorial Examples - v1.26, by Herong Yang
What Is Nucleotide
This section provides a quick introduction of nucleotide, which is a nucleoside binding to a phosphate. A nucleotide has 3 components: a nucleobase, a 5-carbon sugar, and a phosphate.
What Is Nucleotide? - A Nucleotide is a nucleoside linked to a phosphate. Nucleotides are building blocks of DNA and RNA.
When a nucleoside and a phosphate go through a condensation reaction, they form an ester bond, resulting a nucleotide and eliminating a water as shown below. Phosphate is shown in pink color.
Here is another structure diagram that shows the 3 components of a nucleotide: a nucleobase in blue, a 5-carbon sugar in pink, and a phosphate in yellow (source: dcccd.edu).
Notice that the 5 carbon atoms in the deoxyribose are index from 1' to 5' starting from the N-glycosidic bond (linking to the nucleobase) and ending at the ester bond (linking to the phosphate).
This indexes give the nucleotide a sense of direction, going from the top (called the 5' end) to the bottom (called the 3' end).
Table of Contents
Molecule Names and Identifications
►Nucleobase, Nucleoside, Nucleotide, DNA and RNA
What Is RNA (Ribonucleic Acid)
What Is DNA (Deoxyribonucleic Acid)
DNA Primary Structure - Double Helix
What Is DNA/RNA Base and Sequence Pair
ChEMBL Database - European Molecular Biology Laboratory
PubChem Database - National Library of Medicine
INSDC (International Nucleotide Sequence Database Collaboration)
HGNC (HUGO Gene Nomenclature Committee)