Using research from many sources, including chemically accurate models, Watson and Crick discovered how these six subunits were arranged to make the the structure of DNA. The model is called a double helix because two long strands twist around each other like a twisted ladder. The rails of the ladder are made of alternating sugar and phosphate molecules. The steps of the ladder are made of two bases joined together with either two or three weak hydrogen bonds. Nucleotides The basic building block of DNA is called a NUCLEOTIDE. A nucleotide is made up of one sugar molecule, one phosphate molecule and one of the four bases. Here is the structural formula for the four nucleotides of DNA. Note that the purine bases (adenine and guanine) have a double ring structure while the pyrimidine bases (thymine and cytosine) have only a single ring.