• Question: What are the chemical compounds that make up DNA?

    Asked by to Lilly on 17 Mar 2014. This question was also asked by .
    • Photo: Lilian Hunt

      Lilian Hunt answered on 17 Mar 2014:

      DNA is Deoxyribonucleic acid. It is made of a backbone of alternating sugars and phosphates with nucleo bases attached to the sugars. Sounds a bit complex but it is basically two stings of sugar-phosphate molecules running alongside each other with these bases linking them together a bit like a ladder. The bases are called guanine, adenine, thymine, and cytosine (G, A, T and C) and link with the bases on the opposite strand to form base pairs. It’s a lot easier to explain what this looks like in a picture! :

      🙂

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