Nucleotides are the building blocks of DNA and RNA. They are composed of three parts:
* A phosphate group
* A sugar (deoxyribose in DNA and ribose in RNA)
* A nitrogenous base (adenine, guanine, cytosine, thymine in DNA and uracil in RNA)
So, any nucleotide will necessarily be a component of either DNA or RNA.
There are other molecules that are similar to nucleotides but not used in DNA or RNA, such as cyclic AMP (cAMP), which is important in cellular signaling. However, these molecules are not considered to be nucleotides in the strict sense of the term.
Therefore, it's impossible for a nucleotide to exist without being associated with either DNA or RNA.