Introduction
Nucleic acids are the bearers of genetic material in all living organisms. They are very important not just in this area but in the metabolic reactions of the cells of living organisms as well. As such nucleic acid degradation can also be referred to as nucleic acid catabolism (a form of metabolism) because it involves the breakdown of nucleic acids. The building building blocks of nucleic acids are the nucleotides which are composed of a pentose sugar (ribose or 2-deoxy ribose), a nitrogenous base (adenine, guanine, cytosine, thymine, and uracil) and a phosphate group. We therefore expect that the degradation of nucleic acids results into its building components.
The nucleic acids are capable of being broken down into sugars, phosphoric acid and a mixture of bases (both purines and pyrimidine). The sugars can be metabolized to provide the only source of metabolic energy available from purine nucleotide degradation while the purine (adenine and guanine) pyrimidine (Uracil, thymine and cytosine) also further degrade to their different fates. Below is a diagram that tries to summarize the break-down of nucleic acids till the base level. It also shows the groups of enzymes that are important in this degradation process.
Read more here...NUCLIEC ACIDS DEGRADATION, MUUNDA ASSIGNMENT.pdf
