NUCLEIC ACIDS AND RELATED COMPOUNDS 



239 







CHgC— C— C— CHjOP P OCH2 <^ 

 H |!l H OH OH \ 



flavine adenine dinucleotide 



A review of naturally occurring nucleotides has been prepared by Henderson and 

 Le Page (12). 



NUCLEIC ACIDS AND POLYNUCLEOTIDES 



Both deoxyribonucleic acid and ribonucleic acid are high molecular weight polymers, 

 each containing four different nitrogen bases, phosphate, and respectively deoxyribose or 

 ribose. The generalized structure of both of them may be represented as follows: 



base - sugar - phosphate 



base - sugar - phosphate 



base - sugar - phosphate 



Phosphate is present as a diester between C-3' of one nucleotide and C-5' of the next. 

 The detailed structure for a segment containing adenine and cytosine would be: 



I 

 P 







CH90POH 



