Nucleic Acid Structure:- DNA Stores Genetic Information

The biochemical investigation of DNA began with Friedrich Miescher, who carried out the first systematic chemical studies of cell nuclei. In 1868 Miescher isolated a phosphorus-containing substance, which he called “nuclein,” from the nuclei of pus cells (leukocytes) obtained from discarded surgical bandages. He found nuclein to consist of an acidic portion, which we know today as DNA, and a basic portion, protein. Miescher later found a similar acidic substance in the heads of sperm cells from salmon. Although he partially purified nuclein and studied its properties, the covalent (primary) structure of DNA (as shown in Fig. 8–7) was not known with certainty until the late 1940s. Miescher and many others suspected that nuclein (nucleic acid) was associated in some way with cell in heritance, but the first direct evidence that DNA is the bearer of genetic information came in 1944 through a discovery made by Oswald T. Avery, Colin MacLeod, and Maclyn McCarty. These investigators found that DNA extracted from a virulent (disease-causing) strain of the bacterium Streptococcus pneumoniae, also known as pneumococcus, genetically transformed a nonvirulent strain of this organism into a virulent form (Fig. 8–12).

FIGURE 8–12 The Avery-MacLeod-McCarty experiment. (a) When injected into mice, the encapsulated strain of pneumococcus is lethal, (b) whereas the nonencapsulated strain, (c) like the heat-killed en capsulated strain, is harmless. (d) Earlier research by the bacteriologist Frederick Griffith had shown that adding heat-killed virulent bacteria (harmless to mice) to a live nonvirulent strain permanently transformed the latter into lethal, virulent, encapsulated bacteria. (e) Avery and his colleagues extracted the DNA from heat-killed virulent pneumococci, removing the protein as completely as possible, and added this DNA to nonvirulent bacteria. The DNA gained en trance into the nonvirulent bacteria, which were permanently trans formed into a virulent strain.

Avery and his colleagues concluded that the DNA extracted from the virulent strain carried the inheritable genetic message for virulence. Not everyone accepted these conclusions, because protein impurities present in the DNA could have been the carrier of the genetic information. This possibility was soon eliminated by the finding that treatment of the DNA with proteolytic enzymes did not destroy the transforming activity, but treatment with deoxyribonucleases (DNA-hydrolyzing enzymes) did. A second important experiment provided independent evidence that DNA carries genetic information. In 1952 Alfred D. Hershey and Martha Chase used radioactive phosphorus (³²P) and radioactive sulfur (³⁵S) tracers to show that when the bacterial virus (bacteriophage) T2 infects its host cell, Escherichia coli, it is the phosphorus-containing DNA of the viral particle, not the sulfur-containing protein of the viral coat, that enters the host cell and furnishes the genetic information for viral replication (Fig. 8–13). These important early experiments and many other lines of evidence have shown that DNA is the exclusive chromosomal compo nent bearing the genetic information of living cells.

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مواضيع ذات صلة

Carbohydrates as Informational Molecules: The Sugar Code:- Lectin-Carbohydrate Interactions Are Very Strong and Highly Specific

Carbohydrates as Informational Molecules: The Sugar Code:- Lectins Are Proteins That Read the Sugar Code and Mediate Many Biological Processes

Polysaccharides:- Glycolipids and Lipopolysaccharides Are Membrane Components

Polysaccharides: - Glycoproteins Have Covalently Attached Oligosaccharides

Polysaccharides:- Proteoglycans Are Glycosaminoglycan-Containing Macromolecules of the Cell Surface and Extracellular Matrix

Polysaccharides:- Glycosaminoglycans Are Heteropolysaccharides of the Extracellular Matrix

Polysaccharides:- Bacterial and Algal Cell Walls Contain Structural Hetero polysaccharides

Polysaccharides: -Steric Factors and Hydrogen Bonding Influence Homopolysaccharide Folding

Polysaccharides:- Some Homopolysaccharides Serve Structural Roles

Polysaccharides:- Some Homopolysaccharides Are Stored Forms of Fuel

Monosaccharides and Disaccharides:- Disaccharides Contain a Glycosidic Bond

Monosaccharides and Disaccharides:- Monosaccharides Are Reducing Agents