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DNA is deoxyribonucleic acid. It is made of two long polynucleotide strands held together by hydrogen bonds between the bases.
Each nucleotide is made of a molecule of deoxyribose sugar a phosphate group and a nitrogen-containing base. The four bases in DNA are adenine, guanine, cytosine and thymine (A, G, C and T).
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Key terms in this lesson
- hydrogen bond
- A weak electrostatic attraction between a slightly positive hydrogen atom on one polar molecule and a slightly negative atom, such as oxygen or nitrogen, on another.
- nucleotide
- A molecule made of a pentose sugar, a phosphate group and a nitrogen-containing base.
- complementary base pairing
- The specific pairing of bases by hydrogen bonds, adenine with thymine (or uracil) and guanine with cytosine.
More in Nucleic Acids
- Nucleotides
- RNA
- Complementary Base Pairing
- Stability of the Double Helix
- Function of DNA
- Discovering DNA as the Hereditary Material
- DNA Semi-Conservative Replication
- Evidence for Semi-Conservative Replication
All 18 lessons in Nucleic Acids · All AQA AS-level Biology topics