Nucleic acid was discovered by Friedrich Miescher in 1868 and he named it ‘nuclein’ because he isolated it from the nuclei of white blood cells.
Nucleic acids are long-chain polymeric molecules, the monomer (the repeating unit) is known as the nucleotides and hence sometimes nucleic acids are referred to as polynucleotides.
Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and ribonucleic acid (RNA) are two major types of nucleic acids. DNA and RNA are responsible for the inheritance and transmission of specific characteristics from one generation to the other. There are prominently two types of nucleic acids known to us so, it carries genetic information.