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Nucleotides and DNA! help

I'm currently learning about DNA nucleotides and I am a bit confused between some nomenclature.
My lecturer varied between 'phosphate group' and 'phosphoryl group'. Are they actually interchangeable- is one wrong and one right? Or was it simply a slip of the tongue? I'm a bit confused of what the difference between them is (And yes, I've tried googling but I don't really understand or see much of a difference!)

(edited 3 years ago)

Reply 1

Natasha Birch

I don't know, but I've always heard of it as a phosphate group so I'd just stick to that if I were you as it's definitely right.

Reply 2

mushed

okay thank you but yeah, id always heard of it as a phosphate group too so that's why I was confused :tongue:

Original post by Natasha Birch

I don't know, but I've always heard of it as a phosphate group so I'd just stick to that if I were you as it's definitely right.

Reply 3

HarisMalik98

If you're talking about nucleotide structure, then it is a phosphate group. I've never heard this being interchanged with phosphoryl before in this context - so i'd stick with phosphate.

If you're talking about protein phosphorylation, then it's technically the transfer of a phosphoryl group. However, this is usually interchanged with phosphate group and many biology textbooks also state phosphorylation as the addition of a 'phosphate' group so I wouldn't worry too much about it.

The main difference is one less oxygen in the phosphoryl group (3 instead of 4). Don't worry about the nomenclature of this, both are used. However, i'd say the majority of biology literature tends to go with phosphate.