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.
How are nucleotides held together vs how DNA strands in a DNA molecule are held together? The nucleotides are linked together covalently by phosphodiester bonds through the 3'-OH group of one sugar and the 5'-PO3 of the next, into polynucleotide chains. A DNA molecule is composed of two of these polynucleotide chains (DNA strands) which are held together by hydrogen bonds between the paired bases. DNA is wound into a _______ _______.