What are nucleosides, nucleotides, and nucleic acids?

This post is about nucleosides, nucleotides, and nucleic acids. It is often confusing for students to remember and tell the differences between them.

Let's look at what they are.

A nitrogenous base, sugar, which can be either deoxyribose or ribose sugar, and phosphate are building blocks of nucleic acids, DNA, and RNA.

Nitrogenous bases are

Adenine,

Guanine,

Cytosine,

Thymine,

and Uracil

Among these bases, Adenine and guanine are known as Purines.

Similarly, Cytosine, Uracil, and Thymine are Pyrimidines.

How to remember them?

The Mnemonic is "Pure as gold." for purines and C, U, T, for pyrimidines.

When these bases are combined with sugar, they are then known as nucleosides, "Remember sides with sugar!"

Nucleosides have names either ending in "sines" or "dines"

Adenosine,

Guanosine,

Cytidine,

Thymidine,

Uridine.

When phosphate is added to nucleosides, it gives nucleotides.

Remember "Tides with Phosphate"

These can be monophosphate, diphosphate, or triphosphate. for example: Adenosine monophosphate, Cytidine Diphosphate, Uridine Triphosphate, etc.

Oh, wait, What are DNA and RNA?

When these Different Nucleotides connect by phosphodiester bonds and form a polymer, they are called nucleic acids.

DNA and RNA are two types of nucleic acids.

Sugar is deoxyribose in DNA and ribose in DNA.

Remember, Uracil is found in RNA and Thymine in DNA.

Bonds formed between Nitrogenous bases hold the double helix of DNA together.

Remember AT(or U in RNA), CG. That means Adenine bonds with Thymine or Uracil by double bonds. Similarly, Cytosine forms a bond with Guanine, by triple hydrogen bonds. Therefore higher CG content makes stronger bonds, which makes it harder to denaturate.

This concludes our review. Thank you. See you in the next post!

You can review this in the video lesson below :

Contact Pathologynuggets.blogspot.com by email for suggestions and comments.

Comments

Different types of Heart Murmurs with Sound

ⒸPathologynuggets. Notes to review for medical students, residents, and doctors Hello! welcome to our new blog post on cardiac murmurs. In this blog post about heart murmurs, we review the most common types of heart murmurs. Murmur is the sound of blood flowing abnormally through the heart valves and most often signs of valve disorders. If you are new to the blog, don't forget to show your support by like and subscribe. Read till the end of the blog for some bonus tips! Now let's continue our review. Normal heart sounds consist of sounds S1 and S2. S1 represents closure of mitral valve and tricuspid valves at the beginning of systole. S2 represents the closure of aortic and pulmonic valves at beginning of diastole. Thus, the interval between s1 and s2 represents systole, and in this interval systolic murmurs are heard Similarly, diastolic murmurs are heard at the interval between s2 and s1. So, what are the most common types of heart murmurs? For easy understanding, we can di...

Approach to Types of Vasculitis -- Easy review notes of Large, Medium, Small vessel and other Vasculitides

ⒸPathologynuggets. Notes to review for medical students, residents, and doctors. Vasculitides are autoimmuine disorders characterized by inflammation of blood vessels. Most of them are chronic systemic disorders that affect the multiple systems and should be considered in differential diagnoses of any multisystem illness. Vasculitis can be divided into large vessel, medium vessel or small vessel vasculitis based on the size of the vessels involved. Large Vessel Vasculitis ‌Giant cell arterities or Temporal arteritis Takayasu arterities Medium Vessel Vasculitis ‌Polyarterities Nodosa Kawasaki Disease Small Vessel Vasculitis ‌Granulomatosis with Polyangitis(GPA) ‌Microscopic polyangitis (MPA) ‌Eosinophilic Granulomatosis with Polyangitis (EGPA) ** Small vessel vasculitides GPA, MPA and EGPA are also known as ANCA ...

Heart Rate Calculation : ECG interpretation quick review

pathologynuggets.blogspot.com 2023 ECG interpretation is an important skill for any healthcare professional. How to calculate the Heart rate? Several methods can be employed to ascertain the heart rate. One straightforward and expedient approach involves Identifying a QRS complex aligned with a prominent vertical grid line. followed by counting the number of large squares to the subsequent QRS complex. Dividing 300 by this count provides the heart rate. Example: In the presented ECG, there are 2 large squares between QRS complexes, resulting in a calculated heart rate of 150 beats per minute. Note: This method only works if the paper speed is set to standard i.e. 25mm/second. At the standard speed of 25mm/s, each large square = 0.2 second each small square = 0.04 second Similarly, this method only works if the heart rhythm is regular. You can find how to assess heart rhythm and calculate heart rate for abnormal rhythm in this ar...

Search This Blog