sugar-phosphate backbone
What sugar-phosphate backbone means in Biology GCSE, as defined for AQA, OCR.
Definitions of sugar-phosphate backbone
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Reference: OCR
A continuous, alternating structure produced when thousands of nucleotides link covalently along their sugar and phosphate groups.
The long strands of DNA consist of alternating sugar and phosphate sections, and this backbone gives DNA strength and stability.
In a DNA strand, the sugar of one nucleotide bonds to the phosphate of the next, forming a repeating sugar-phosphate backbone.
The structure formed by the alternating sugar and phosphate components of adjacent nucleotides joined together.
Topics that use sugar-phosphate backbone
- DNA structure (biology only) (AQA GCSE)
- What happens in cells (and what do cells need)? (OCR GCSE)
Related terms
- Amino acid sequence
- Complementary base pairing
- double helix
- polymer
- protein folding
- ribosomes
- transcription
- translation
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