What sugar is found in DNA?

What sugar is found in DNA? DNA contains the sugar deoxyribose, more precisely 2-deoxy-D-ribose. Each DNA nucleotide includes one deoxyribose molecule, one phosphate group, and one nitrogen-containing base such as adenine, thymine, guanine, or cytosine.

Deoxyribose is a five-carbon monosaccharide. It differs from ribose, the sugar found in RNA, because it lacks an oxygen-containing hydroxyl group at the 2′ carbon. That small chemical difference makes DNA more chemically stable than RNA and helps DNA serve as a durable repository for genetic information.

The name “deoxyribose” means that the sugar is derived from ribose by loss of an oxygen-containing group. Chemist Phoebus Levene discovered deoxyribose in 1929. A common mix-up is to answer ribose because both sugars occur in nucleic acids, but ribose belongs to RNA; DNA’s name itself begins with “deoxyribo-.”