Deoxyribonucleosides

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Compounds composed of a nitrogenous base linked to a sugar moiety without a phosphate group, serving as structural units of nucleic acids and involved in genetic information processes
2. Molecules formed by attaching a nucleobase to a sugar without any phosphate groups, which act as key building blocks in the structure of DNA and RNA
3. Basic biochemical entities consisting of a nitrogen base bound to a deoxyribose sugar, important for assembling genetic materials and participating in cellular functions related to heredity

Etymology: "Deoxyribonucleosides" is the plural of "deoxyribonucleoside," and it is built entirely from a chain of chemical name-parts, each one a clue to the molecule's structure. "Deoxyribose" is the sugar, with the "de-oxy" prefix signalling that one oxygen atom has been removed from the ribose sugar it is derived from. "Nucleo-" points to the nucleobase (the nitrogen-containing ring that carries genetic information) attached to that sugar, and the "-side" ending is the chemist's suffix for a nucleoside, a sugar joined to a base with no phosphate group attached. The word works as a compound of these pieces rather than a single inherited term, and it belongs to the modern vocabulary of biochemistry. Its name follows the same logic as its relatives: a nucleoside plus a phosphate becomes a nucleotide, and chains of nucleotides form DNA. The plural is used when discussing the four building blocks of DNA (adenine, guanine, cytosine and thymine), each of which is paired with deoxyribose in this form.

Synonyms: DNA nucleosides