I am learning about nucleic acids and I am wondering if my text book is wrong or it’s just that I don’t know anything about chemistry or biology. Is there an OH group in phosphate group of a nucleotide?

Question

Here goes the text from my book. It says this:

“Millions of nucleotides join by phospho-di-ester bond to form polynucleotide chains hy condensation between the OH group of thr phosphate of one nucleotide with the OH attached to 3rd carbon of pentose sugar of the other.”

But in the diagram of a nucleotide given in my text book, it shows that there are two neutral oxygen atoms and two charged oxygen atoms surrounding a ‘P’ , in the image of the phosphate group in a nucleotide. So where did the ‘OH’ group come from?

In: Biology

Answer 1

This might require an image of what you’re reading to really answer.

My current theory: H atoms are not shown in some notations of organic compounds (which nucleic acids belong to). In a phosphate group, the negatively charged O atoms may have a hidden H attached to them, which makes them the OH groups you might be overlooking – The H atom is just not shown in the notation. Does that make sense?