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Biology, Answering the Big Questions of Life/DNA2
Reference material by Wikibooks contributors. This retains its source identity and is not 411 news reporting.
Genetic material is DNA
Griffith 1928
Pneumococcus
Mice injected with S strain die
Mice injected with R strain live
Kill S and mix it with R before injecting and the mice die
something transferred from the dead S to the R and transformed it.
Avery MacKeod and McCarthy 1944
same system
purified extracts of cells by type of macromolecule
i.e. destroyed proteins with proteases, removed lipid and carbohydrates, and it still transformed.
Transforming principle is DNA
Hershey and chace 1952
Virus that infects bacteria - Bacteriophage T2
Labeled cells with radioactive isotopes
Radioactive 35S for the proteins
and 32P for the DNA
Sheered the phages off of the cells with a Warring blender
Looked at what entered the cells.
Supernatant - 35S labeled protein
Pellet - bacteria - 32P labeled DNA
DNA entered the cells and caused infection.
DNA was the transforming principle.
Confirmation
Structure of DNA
Rosalind Franklin - Crystallographer - crystlized DNA and took Xray photo - X-ray Crystallography.
found repeating spiral pattern.
Chargraff(1950) - biochemist - analyzed DNA and formulated rules of behavior.
amount of A always equal to amount of T [A]=[T]
amount of C always equal to amount of G [C]=[G]
1953 Watson and Crick model the structure of DNA
DNA double helix with bases as rungs of ladder
monomer spacing 0.34nm
helical spacing 3.4nm per turn (10 bp)
Model helped us understand how DNA worked.
Nobel Prize - Watson Crick and Franklin posthumously
(Semi-conservative replication
Meselson and Stahl 1957
15N labeled DNA
Switch to 14N (normal light) DNA
look after one two and three generations
separate by centrifuge
Start - all heavy
gen 2 - middle
gen 3 middle and light
explain:
Strand is half heavy half light
Semi-conservative