A nitrogenous base in a nucleotide primarily contains the following elements:
- Carbon (C) - Nitrogenous bases are composed of carbon atoms that form the backbone and structure of the base.
- Hydrogen (H) - Hydrogen atoms are attached to the carbon atoms and to nitrogen atoms in the base.
- Nitrogen (N) - As the name suggests, nitrogenous bases contain nitrogen atoms, which are essential for forming the base's structure and its ability to pair with other bases in DNA or RNA.
- Oxygen (O) - In some nitrogenous bases, particularly in RNA and certain modified bases, oxygen atoms may also be present.
The four main nitrogenous bases found in nucleotides are adenine (A) and guanine (G), which are purines, and cytosine (C) and thymine (T) (or uracil (U) in RNA), which are pyrimidines.
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