deoksiribosa

Deoxyribose is a five-carbon sugar (pentose) that forms the backbone of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). It is a derivative of ribose in which the hydroxyl group at the 2' carbon is replaced by hydrogen, yielding 2'-deoxyribose. In DNA nucleotides, deoxyribose is linked to a nitrogenous base at the 1' carbon and to phosphate groups at the 5' and 3' positions, enabling phosphodiester bonds that connect nucleotides into a polynucleotide strand. In DNA, the predominant form is beta-D-2'-deoxyribose, which typically adopts a five-membered furanose ring.

The molecular formula is C5H10O4. The absence of the 2'-hydroxyl group makes DNA chemically more stable than RNA, which contains ribose with a 2'-OH and is more prone to hydrolysis. The sugar's structure also influences the geometry of the DNA backbone and the overall double-helix conformation.

In cells, deoxyribose is present in deoxyribonucleotides (dNTPs: dATP, dGTP, dCTP, dTTP) that are incorporated into DNA by DNA polymerases. It is produced from ribose-5-phosphate via the ribonucleotide reductase pathway, supplying the pool of dNTPs for DNA replication and repair.

Deoxyribose is essential to genetics and molecular biology, distinguishing DNA chemistry from RNA chemistry.