Sugar phosphates Sugars

Phosphate — Sugar — Phosphate — Sugar — Phosphate — Sugar... 

Phosphate—Sugar— Phosphate—Sugar— Phosphate—Sugar... 

Nucleic acids are made of -phosphate-sugar-phosphate-sugar- chains with nitrogenous bases connected to the sugar units. 

The (-phosphate-sugar-phosphate-sugar-) backbone of RNA B, B, B" represent the purine and pyrimidine bases... 

Sugar skeletons are interconverted by way of three classes of compound, sugar phosphates, sugar nucleotides and cyclitols and the major known pathways which interconnect them are summarised in the schemes later in this chapter. The sugar nucleotides are the main intermediates in these interconversions and it is their metabolism which forms the bulk of this chapter. The cyclitols provide an important and, sometimes, dominant route from hexose to uronic acid and, thence, pentoses in plants, but their role in animals is unclear. Sugar phosphates are of importance as the entry to the sugar nucleotide pathways, but of themselves contribute little to metabolic interconversion directly for anabolic purposes. 

Sugar-phosphate-sugar (S-P-S) model representing a section of DNA backbone. Electron-induced bond dissociations at the 3 and 5 -ends of the model are investigated. Figure modified according to the spin density distribution shown in Li and Sevilla (2007), which showed no valence state but a dipole-bound precursor (Reprinted with permission from Xi et al. [2003]. > (2003) American Chemical Society)... 

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