AP BIOLOGY

Detailed explanation-1: -Living organisms have a number of carbon compounds in which heterocyclic rings can be found. Some of these are nitrogen bases – adenine, guanine, cytosine, uracil, and thymine. When found attached to a sugar, they are called nucleosides.

Detailed explanation-2: -The genetic material present in all living organisms and viruses is DNA and RNA, which are nucleic acids. Nucleic acids are polymers of nucleotides. Each nucleotide contains a nitrogenous base, sugar and a terminal phosphate group. Nitrogenous bases are of two types: pyrimidines and purines.

Detailed explanation-3: -Within all lifeforms on Earth, from the tiniest bacterium to the giant sperm whale, there are four major classes of organic macromolecules that are always found and are essential to life. These are the carbohydrates, lipids (or fats), proteins, and nucleic acids.

Detailed explanation-4: -Step 2: Use of elements in biomolecules Thus, carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen are the four elements found in all biological molecules.

Detailed explanation-5: -The fundamental component for all of these macromolecules is carbon. The carbon atom has unique properties that allow it to form covalent bonds to as many as four different atoms, making this versatile element ideal to serve as the basic structural component, or “backbone, ” of the macromolecules.