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Mononucleotides, which comprise a nitrogen-containing base, a sugar, and a phosphate group, make up nucleic acids, which are unbranched polymers.

There are two kinds of nucleic acids:

1. Ribonucleic Acid (RNA) is a five-carbon sugar that contains ribose.

2. DNA: Deoxyribonucleic acid similarly contains ribose; the only difference is that the -OH group is replaced by the -H group at the ribose site.

DNA is made up of two strands wrapped around each other in a double helix form. Each base is coupled with the same base or, more accurately, the same partner. G (guanine) with C and A (adenine) with T (thymine) (cytosine). Adenine and thymine may make two hydrogen bonds, while cytosine and guanine can form three hydrogen bonds.

Nucleic acids are the building blocks of life. Phosphodiester and hydrogen bonds bind DNA and RNA together. The phosphodiester linkage connects the monomers in each strand of DNA.

The connection is between one sugar molecule's 3' carbon atom, and another's 5' carbon atom. The linking structure is extremely complicated.