Question

how can we differentiate nucleotides and nucleosides

Answer 1

Nucleotide and nucleoside are building blocks of nucleic acids. Nucleotide contains a nitrogenous base, sugar and a phosphate group and nucleoside contains only a nitrogenous base and a phosphate group. The sugar molecule can be either deoxyribose or ribose. Phosphorylation of a nucleoside at the 5’ carbon of the sugar converts a nucleoside into a nucleotide. Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and ribonucleic acid (RNA) are nucleotide polymers. The main difference between nucleotide and nucleoside is that nucleotide is the precursor of both DNA and RNA whereas nucleoside is the precursor of nucleotide.