Question: where are the sugars and phosphates located on a dna molecule?
Answer: The sugar–phosphate groups line up in a “backbone” for each single strand of DNA, and the nucleotide bases stick out from this backbone. The carbon atoms of the five-carbon sugar are numbered clockwise from the oxygen as 1′, 2′, 3′, 4′, and 5′ (1′ is read as “one prime”).