Purine

Genomics

See Also

• DNA?
• Nucleotide
• RNA

Description

Purine is a heterocyclic aromatic organic compound, consisting of a pyrimidine ring fused to an imidazole ring.

The general term purines also refers to substituted purines and their tautomers. Two of the bases in nucleic acids, adenine? and guanine, are purines. In DNA?, these bases form hydrogen bonds with their complementary pyrimidines thymine? and cytosine?.

In RNA, the complement of adenine is uracil (U) instead of thymine.

     Adenine             Guanine 

The hydrogen bonding modes are for classical Watson-Crick base pairing. Other hydrogen bonding modes are seen in both DNA and RNA. Of significance, the additional 2'-hydroxyl group of the ribose moiety in RNA expands the configurations through which RNA can form hydrogen bonds.

Other notable purines are xanthine, hypoxanthine, theobromine, caffeine and uric acid.

Purines are biochemically significant as components of DNA and RNA, and are also found in a number of other important biomolecules, such as ATP, GTP, cyclic AMP, NADH, and coenzyme A.

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