Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun biochemistry The base of a nucleic acid, such as thymine, uracil, adenine, cytosine and guanine.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

nucleo- +‎ base

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Examples

  • Two of the carbonaceous chondrites contained a diverse array of nucleobases and structurally similar compounds known as nucleobase analogs.

    msnbc.com: Top msnbc.com headlines 2011

  • Two of the carbonaceous chondrites contained a diverse array of nucleobases and structurally similar compounds known as nucleobase analogs.

    FOXNews.com Charles Q. Choi 2011

  • But Powner et al. 2 revive the prospects of the 'RNA first' model by exploring a pathway for pyrimidine ribonucleotide synthesis in which the sugar and nucleobase emerge from a common precursor (Fig. 1b).

    Convincing Evidence for God 2010

  • In this pathway, the complete ribonucleotide structure forms without using free sugar and nucleobase molecules as intermediates.

    Convincing Evidence for God 2010

  • A complex web of reactions — with phosphate acting as a crucial catalyst at several steps along the way — produced a small molecule called 2-amino­oxazole, which can be viewed as a fragment of a sugar joined to a piece of a nucleobase. lol.

    BioLogos Reviews "Signature in the Cell" 2009

  • For 40 years, efforts to understand the prebiotic synthesis of the ribonucleotide building blocks of RNA have been based on the assumption that they must have assembled from their three molecular components: a nucleobase (which can be adenine, guanine, cytosine or uracil), a ribose sugar and phosphate.

    Convincing Evidence for God 2010

  • These creative chemists abandoned the tradition of attempting to make nucleotides by joining a nucleobase, sugar and phosphate.

    BioLogos Reviews "Signature in the Cell" 2009

  • "Finding nucleobase compounds not typically found in Earth's biochemistry strongly supports an extraterrestrial origin," Cleaves said.

    msnbc.com: Top msnbc.com headlines 2011

  • Intriguingly, three of these nucleobase analogs are very rare in Earth biology, and were not found in soil and ice samples from the areas near where the meteorites were collected at the parts-per-billion limits of their detection techniques.

    msnbc.com: Top msnbc.com headlines 2011

  • Lab experiments showed that chemical reactions of ammonia and cyanide, compounds that are common in space, could generate nucleobases and nucleobase analogs very similar to those found in the carbonaceous chondrites.

    msnbc.com: Top msnbc.com headlines 2011

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