Ribo-This is short for ribose and it is a pentose sugar. Contrast this with the sugar group in DNA which is dexoyribose. Nucleic-Refers to the fact that it originates in the nucleus.
DNA is a double helix formed by base pairs attached to a sugar-phosphate backbone. DNA, or deoxyribonucleic acid, is the hereditary material in humans and almost all other organisms.
The structure of RNA differs fundamentally from that of DNA in three ways: 1  It forms a single strand sugar-phosphate chain. 2  The sugar in its nucleotides is ribose. 3  The base thymine is replaced by the base uracil.