Differences between DNA and RNA

• DNA is double stranded; RNA is a single stranded
• N.B. ATP is also a nucleotide, with ribose as the pentose sugar.
• DNA contains the pentose sugar deoxyribose; RNA contains the pentose sugar ribose.
• DNA has the base Thymine (T) but not Uracil (U); RNA has U but not T.
• DNA is very long (billions of bases); RNA is smaller (hundreds to thousands of bases)
• DNA is self-replicating, RNA is copied from the DNA so it is not self-replicating
The genetic information is held within the base sequence along a DNA strand.
A codon is a sequence of three nucleotides, coding for one amino-acid.
The genetic code is universal, thus all life must have had a common ancestor (i.e. evolution)