nucleic acid

English

Wikipedia

Etymology

nucleic (of the nucleus) + acid

Pronunciation

• (RP) IPA: /njuːˈkliː.ɪk ˈæsɪd/, /njuːˈkleɪ.ɪk ˈæsɪd/
• (US) IPA: /nuˈkleɪ.ɪk ˈæsɪd/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

Noun

nucleic acid (plural nucleic acids)

1. (biochemistry, genetics) Any acidic, chainlike biological macromolecule consisting of multiply repeat units of phosphoric acid, sugar and purine and pyrimidine bases; they are involved in the preservation, replication and expression of hereditary information in every living cell

Translations

acidic chainlike biological macromolecule

Catalan: àcid nucleic (ca) m. Czech: nukleová kyselina (cs) f. Esperanto: nuklea acido (eo) Finnish: nukleiinihappo (fi), tumahappo (fi) French: acide nucléique (fr) German: Nukleinsäure (de) f. Icelandic: kjarnasýra (is) (kjarni (is) m. + sýra (is) f.) f.

Italian: acido nucleico (it) m. Japanese: 核酸 (かくさん, kakusan) Polish: kwasy nukleinowe Romanian: acid nucleic m. Slovak: nukleová kyselina (sk) f. Spanish: ácido nucleico (es) Swedish: nukleinsyra (sv) c.

Derived terms

• ribonucleic acid (RNA)
• deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA)
• threose nucleic acid (TNA)
• peptide nucleic acid (PNA)
• glycol nucleic acid (GNA)

• unlocked nucleic acid (UNA)
• locked nucleic acid (LNA)
• bridged nucleic acid (BNA)

• nucleic acid analogue (XNA)

See also

• DNA
• RNA
• nucleoside
• nucleotide