Adenine
Adenine is one of the four nitrogen-containing base pairs found in DNA, the others being Cytosine (C), Guanine (G) and Thymine (T). It is one of the purine bases along with guanine. Both cytosine and thymine are pyrimidines. It has the chemical formla C5H5N5. Adenine has a molecular weight of ~135 g/mol. In DNA it provides stability to the double helix by forming two hydrogen bonds with thymine, which is adenine's complementary base pair. However in RNA it forms hydrogen bonds with uracil instead of thymine. Purines are 6-membered rings attatched to a 5-membered ring with nitrogens at positions 1, 3, 7 and 9, making them a heterocyclic aromatic compound.
Adenine plays an important role in cellular organisms in the form of ATP, an energy-rich molecule used during proccesses such as respiration and other chemical reactions within the cell[1].
