having or showing a disposition to avoid exertion; slothful: an indolent person. 2. Pathology. causing little or no pain; inactive or relatively benign: an indolent ulcer that is not painful and is slow to heal.
DNA and RNA are composed of nucleotides that are linked to one another in a chain by chemical bonds, called ester bonds, between the sugar base of one nucleotide and the phosphate group of the adjacent nucleotide. The sugar is the 3' end, and the phosphate is the 5' end of each nucleiotide.
At each point of juncture within a polynucleotide, the 5' end of one nucleotide attaches to the 3' end of the adjacent nucleotide through a connection called a phosphodiester bond (Figure 3). It is this alternating sugar-phosphate arrangement that forms the backbone of a DNA molecule.