DNA is made up of two antiparallel chains of nucleotides that wrap around each other to form a double helix structure. The nucleotides are composed of a phosphate group, deoxyribose sugar, and one of four nitrogen bases - adenine, guanine, cytosine, or thymine. Watson and Crick discovered that the bases pair up between the two strands in a complementary fashion, with adenine always pairing with thymine and cytosine pairing with guanine. This precise sequence of bases varies between individuals and carries genetic information.