What monomer makes up a nucleic acid?

Monomers form to combine polymers, in this case a nucleic acid.

The monomer of a nucleic acid consists of a nitrogenous base, a phosphate group, and a sugar. The monomers are bound together by phosphodiester bonds.

With that information, you should be able to find the answer.

The monomer that makes up nucleic acids is called a nucleotide. Nucleotides are the building blocks of DNA and RNA, the two types of nucleic acids found in living organisms. To understand the monomer in more detail, let's break down a nucleotide into its components.

A nucleotide consists of three main parts: a phosphate group, a sugar molecule, and a nitrogenous base. The phosphate group is a cluster of atoms containing phosphorus and oxygen. The sugar molecule in DNA is called deoxyribose, while in RNA it is called ribose. The nitrogenous base can be one of four types: adenine (A), guanine (G), cytosine (C), or thymine (T) in DNA, or adenine (A), guanine (G), cytosine (C), or uracil (U) in RNA.

The arrangement of these three components, the phosphate group, sugar molecule, and nitrogenous base, forms a nucleotide. Multiple nucleotides link together through a chemical reaction called a phosphodiester bond, connecting the phosphate group of one nucleotide to the sugar molecule of the next nucleotide. This chain of nucleotides makes up the backbone of DNA or RNA, with the nitrogenous bases extending from it.

So, the monomer that makes up a nucleic acid, such as DNA and RNA, is the nucleotide – which consists of a phosphate group, a sugar molecule (deoxyribose or ribose), and a nitrogenous base (adenine, guanine, cytosine, thymine, or uracil).