what is the basic unit of nucleic acid
The basic repeating unit of nucleic acids are known as nucleotides. A nucleotide consists of three distinct chemical groups, a 5-carbon sugar (ribose or deoxyribose), a nitrogen-rich base - (cytosine (C), guanine (G), adenine (A), thymine (T) in DNA or uracil (U) instead of T (in RNA), and phosphate.he nitrogenous base, either a purine (adenine or guanine), or a pyrimidine (thymine, uracil or cytosine), is attached to the 1' carbon of the sugar. Nucleotides can exist in various phosphorylated forms, including nucleotide monophosphate (NMP), nucleotide di phosphate (NDP), or nucleotide triphosphate (NTP).