Structures of the Molecular Components in DNA and RNA with Bond Lengths Interpreted as Sums of Atomic Covalent Radii

ABSTRACT

The author has found recently that the lengths of chemical bonds are sums of the covalent and or ionic radii of the relevant atoms constituting the bonds, whether they are completely or partially covalent or ionic. This finding has been tested here for the skeletal bond lengths in the molecular constituents of nucleic acids, adenine, thymine, guanine, cytosine, uracil, ribose, deoxyribose and phosphoric acid. On collecting the existing data and comparing them graphically with the sums of the appropriate covalent radii of C, N, O, H and P, it is found that there is a linear dependence with effectively unit slope and zero intercept. This shows that the bond lengths in the above molecules can be interpreted as sums of the relevant atomic covalent radii. Based on this result, the author has presented here the atomic structures of the above molecules in terms of the atomic radii (for the first time).