Understanding the Sugar-Phosphate Backbone

The phosphate backbone of DNA is negatively charged due to the bonds created between the phosphorous atoms and the oxygen atoms. Each phosphate group contains one negatively charged oxygen atom, therefore the entire strand of DNA is negatively charged due to repeated phosphate groups.

Nitrogen is essential to create all the nucleic acids, and phosphorous is essential to create phospholipids (an obvious choice), ATP and ADP (they are the same class of molecule, and the P stands for phosphate), and DNA (for the phosphate-sugar backbone).

The bond formed between the sugar of one nucleotide and the phosphate of an adjacent nucleotide is a covalent bond. A covalent bond is the sharing of electrons between atoms. A covalent bond is stronger than a hydrogen bond (hydrogen bonds hold pairs of nucleotides together on opposite strands in DNA). Thus, the covalent bond is crucial to the backbone of the DNA.

DNA is a polymer composed of nucleotide monomers. Each nucleotide is formed from a deoxyribose sugar, a phosphate, and a nitrogenous base. There are two types of nitrogenous bases: purines and pyrimidines. The purines are adenine and guanine, while the pyrimidines are thymine and cytosine (and uracil). Adenine will always bind thymine and cytosine will always bind guanine. Uracil is only found in RNA, and is absent from DNA.

During DNA replication and synthesis, nucleotides align so that the nitrogenous bases are correctly paired. The bases bind to one other via hydrogen bonding to secure the nucleotide to the template strand. The protein DNA ligase then fuses the sugar-phosphate groups of adjacent nucleotides to create the DNA backbone. These bonds are known as phosphodiester bonds.

The only false statement concerns the identity of bonding between nitrogenous bases. Bases are held together by hydrogen bonds, and the DNA backbone is held together by phosphodiester bonds.