DNA is composed of nucleotides, each containing a nitrogenous base, a pentose sugar, and a phosphate group. The two types of pentose sugars are deoxyribose in DNA and ribose in RNA. There are two types of nitrogenous bases - purines (adenine and guanine) and pyrimidines (cytosine, thymine, and in RNA, uracil). Watson and Crick proposed that DNA exists as a double helix with the bases pairing together between the two anti-parallel strands - adenine pairs with thymine and guanine pairs with cytosine. The structure allows DNA to self-replicate and transmit genetic information to daughter cells during cell division.
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