Nucleic acids are primarily made of which type of molecules?

Nucleic acids, such as DNA and RNA, are primarily composed of nucleotides. Each nucleotide consists of three components: a phosphate group, a five-carbon sugar (either ribose in RNA or deoxyribose in DNA), and a nitrogenous base (which can be adenine, thymine, cytosine, guanine for DNA, and uracil instead of thymine for RNA). The specific sequence of these nucleotides encodes genetic information, making them crucial for the storage and expression of genetic material.

While other types of molecules play vital roles in biological systems—fatty acids are components of lipids, amino acids are the building blocks of proteins, and monosaccharides are simple sugars that make up carbohydrates—none are involved in the direct structure of nucleic acids. The unique combination of nucleotides and their ability to link together in varied sequences is what gives nucleic acids their specific functionalities in encoding genetic information.