A nucleotide contains a phosphate group and a five- carbon sugar and one of four nitrogenous bases. In DNA, the components of a nucleotide include the sugar deoxyribose and the base can be one of the following four-adenine, guanine, cytosine or thymine.
A nucleotide in RNA contains a different sugar called ribose and one of the following four nitrogenous bases-either adenine, guanine, cytosine or uracil.
DNA and RNA are known as polynucleotides because they are built from nucleotides that are linked together to form a macromolecule.
DNA is a double -stranded molecule arranged as a double helix with its nitrogenous bases linked together in the center in complementary base pairs- adenine to thymine and cytosine to guanine. The sides of the molecule are the sugar and phosphate groups.
RNA is a single stranded molecule.
I have included a link comparing DNA and RNA.
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