Nucleic acid Nucleic acid Nucleic acids are the biopolymers, or small biomolecules, essential to all known forms of life. The term "nucleic acid" is the overall name for DNA and RNA. They are composed of nucleotides, which are the monomers made of three components: a 5-carbon sugar, a phosphate group and a nitrogenous base. If the sugar is a compound ribose, the polymer is RNA (ribonucleic acid); if the sugar is derived from ribose as deoxyribose, the polymer is DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid). Nucleic acids are the most important of all biomolecules. They are found in abundance in all living things, where they
Mesoxalic acid and reacts with water to form a product commonly called "mesoxalic acid (mono)hydrate", more properly dihydroxymalonic acid, HO-(C=O)-C(OH)-(C=O)-OH. In product catalogs and other contexts, the terms "mesoxalic acid", "oxomalonic acid", etc. often refer to this "hydrated" compound. In particular, the product traded as "sodium mesoxalate monohydrate" is almost always sodium dihydroxymalonate. Mesoxalic acid can be obtained synthetically by hydrolysis of alloxan with baryta water, by warming caffuric acid with lead acetate solution, or from glycerin diacetate and concentrated nitric acid in the cold. The product can be obtained also by oxidation of tartronic acid It is also prepared by the