∞ generated and posted on 2016.01.13 ∞
Technically a nucleic acid possessing a single phosphate group (rather than two or three or none) but also used to describe a single unit on a strand of nucleic acid that specifies sequence.
Within a polynucleic acid, each subunit consists of what is known as a nucleoside (a nucleic acid subunit that is not attached to a phosphate group) and one phosphate group, together forming a nucleotide. A nucleotide in particular is a nucleic acid moiety as found in DNA or RNA.
When one speaks of the size of genomes, this can be designated in terms of number of nucleotides. Thus, Escherichia coli possess a genome that is in the range of five-million nucleotides. Alternatively, and more commonly for double-stranded nucleic acids, one speaks of base pairs, but in this case the reference is to a single nucleotide on one strand, especially of DNA, and its nucleotide complement found on the other strand to which it is base paired.
AMP, that is, adenosine monophosphate, is a nucleotide, in this case an RNA nucleotide. Contrast adenosine diphosphate (ADP) or adenosine triphosphate (ATP).