Question

What are the structural differences between RNA and DNA?

Short answer

The RNA and DNA differ in their number of helical strands, nitrogenous base composition, sugar moiety, and molecular mass.

Step-by-step solution

Introduction

DNA and RNA are the nucleic acids of the cell. They are made up of sugar, phosphate, and nitrogenous bases.

Explanation

DNA contains the sugar deoxyribose while RNA contains a ribose sugar, and hence they have their name as DeoxyriboNucleic Acid and RiboNucleic Acid respectively. Again, the nitrogenous bases present in DNA are Adenine, thymine, cytosine, and Guanine, while RNA instead of Thymine contains uracil base. They both also differ in the number of helical strands. The DNA is double-stranded while RNA is a single-stranded molecule. Also, the molecular mass of DNA is larger than RNA.