Do phosphate and pentose give heterogeneity or homogeneity

Question

Do phosphate and pentose groups provide heterogeneity or homogeneity to the nucleic acid chains? What regarding the nitrogen-containing groups? Supported by that, which of such groups is expected to directly contribute in the highly diverse and heterogeneous genetic coding, that is, which of such groups is the basis of information for protein making?

Answer 1

The phosphate and pentose groups are similar in every nucleotide which forms the nucleic acid and therefore they provide homogeneity to the molecule. The nitrogen-containing bases though can differ among adenine, cytosine, thymine, guanine (in DNA) and uracil (in RNA). Such variations give the heterogeneity of the nucleic acid molecule.

Homogeneous parts of a molecule seldom would store some information, by similar reason that a series of similar letter of the alphabet can’t make numerous words with distinct meanings. The nitrogen-containing bases, on other hand, since they are distinct (four different kinds for RNA or DNA), can make various sequences and combinations which permit the variety of the genetic code.