Nucleotides in general has three components. First is the phosphate group that acts as a backbone for the final nucleic acid formed. Second is the pentose sugar which is a 5 carbon sugar; in DNA the sugar is deoxyribose and in RNA the sugar is ribose. Third is the nitrogenous base; it can either be adenine, guanine, cytosine, thymine (in DNA) or uracil (in RNA).
