Structural and Molecular Biology for Chemists - Biological Inorganic Chemistry - page 50

In RNA, the base thymine (T) found in DNA is replaced by uracil, which is similar in structure to T, but lacks
the methyl group. The nucleotides in nucleic acids are linked by phosphodiester bonds between the 3 0 -hydroxyl of
one nucleoside and the 5 0 -hydroxyl of the sugar of its neighbour in the sequence, as was first shown by Alexander
Todd 8 in 1952 ( Figure 3.17 ) .
FIGURE 3.17 The structure of part of a molecule of DNA. The deoxyribose residues are linked by phosphodiester bonds between the 3 0 OH of
one nucleoside and the 5 0 OH of the next.
SECONDARY AND TERTIARY STRUCTURES OF NUCLEIC ACIDS
An enormous kick-start to modern molecular biology was given by the seminal 1953 Nature paper of Francis
Crick and Jim Watson on the double helical structure of DNA. It was based on two important observations.
8. Sir Alexander Todd, who won the 1957 Chemistry Nobel Prize was a former pupil of Allan Glen's school in Glasgow, where I also got my
secondary education. He not only established the chemical structure of nucleic acids, but we owe to him our knowledge of the structures of
FAD, ADP and ATP.