El apareamiento de bases se refiere a la interacción entre bases nitrogenadas que da origen a las formas hibridadas o plegadas de los ácidos nucleicos, tanto el ADN como el ARN. Las interacciones entre las bases se dan a través de puentes de hidrógeno entre regiones específicas. El primer patrón de apareamiento modelado por Watson y Crick describe la interacción G-C(guanina-citosina), A-T(adenina-timina) y como consecuencia la estructura de doble hélice del ADN. El carácter complementario de este apareamiento proporciona también un mecanismo de replicación y transcripción: procesos esenciales en la transferencia y el procesamiento de la información genética. El apareamiento de bases puede ser intermolecular o intramolecular. Las bases de una hebra de ADN se aparean intermolecularmente con bases de su hebra complementaria, mientras que en los ARN de cadena sencilla el apareamiento se da intramolecularmente entre regiones complementarias cercanas dentro de la misma hebra.

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A base pair (bp) is a unit consisting of two nucleobases bound to each other by hydrogen bonds. They form the building blocks of the DNA double helix, and contribute to the folded structure of both DNA and RNA. Dictated by specific hydrogen bonding patterns, Watson-Crick base pairs (guanine-cytosine and adenine-thymine) allow the DNA helix to maintain a regular helical structure that is subtly dependent on its nucleotide sequence. The complementary nature of this based-paired structure provides a backup copy of all genetic information encoded within double-stranded DNA. The regular structure and data redundancy provided by the DNA double helix make DNA well suited to the storage of genetic information, while base-pairing between DNA and incoming nucleotides provides the mechanism through which DNA polymerase replicates DNA, and RNA polymerase transcribes DNA into RNA. Many DNA-binding proteins can recognize specific base pairing patterns that identify particular regulatory regions of genes. Intramolecular base pairs can occur within single-stranded nucleic acids. This is particularly important in RNA molecules (e.g., transfer RNA), where Watson-Crick base pairs (G-C and A-U) permit the formation of short double-stranded helices, and a wide variety of non-Watson-Crick interactions (e.g., G-U or A-A) allow RNAs to fold into a vast range of specific three-dimensional structures. In addition, base-pairing between transfer RNA (tRNA) and messenger RNA (mRNA) forms the basis for the molecular recognition events that result in the nucleotide sequence of mRNA becoming translated into the amino acid sequence of proteins via the genetic code. The size of an individual gene or an organism's entire genome is often measured in base pairs because DNA is usually double-stranded. Hence, the number of total base pairs is equal to the number of nucleotides in one of the strands (with the exception of non-coding single-stranded regions of telomeres). The haploid human genome (23 chromosomes) is estimated to be about 3.2 billion bases long and to contain 20,000–25,000 distinct protein-coding genes. A kilobase (kb) is a unit of measurement in molecular biology equal to 1000 base pairs of DNA or RNA. The total amount of related DNA base pairs on Earth is estimated at 5.0 x 1037, and weighs 50 billion tonnes. In comparison, the total mass of the biosphere has been estimated to be as much as 4 TtC (trillion tons of carbon).

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