Nucleosides and Nucleotides

The term "nucleoside" refers to a base and sugar. "Nucleotide," on the other hand, refers to the base, sugar, and phosphate group (Figure 1). A bond, called the glycosidic bond, holds the base to the sugar and the 3′-5′ ("three prime-five prime") phosphodiester bond holds the individual nucleotides together. Nucleotides are joined from the 3′ carbon of the sugar in one nucleotide to the 5′ carbon of the sugar of the adjacent nucleotide. The 3′ and the 5′ ends are chemically very distinct and have different reactive properties. During DNA replication, new nucleotides are added only to the 3′ OH end of a DNA strand. This fact has important implications for replication.