Like the ring of power in Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings," deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) is the master molecule of every cell. It contains vital information that gets passed on to each successive generation. It coordinates the making of itself as well as other molecules (proteins). If it is changed slightly, serious consequences may result. If it is destroyed beyond repair, the cell dies.
Changes in the DNA of cells in multicellular organisms produce variations in the characteristics of a species. Over long periods of time, natural choice acts on these variations to evolve or alter the species.
The presence or absence of DNA facts at a crime scene could mean the difference between a guilty verdict & an acquittal. DNA is so important that the United States government has spent immense amounts of money to unravel the sequence of DNA in the human genome in hopes of understanding & finding cures for plenty of genetic diseases. Finally, from the DNA of cell, they can clone an animal, a plant or perhaps even a human being.
But what is DNA? Where is it found? What makes it so special? How does it work? In this editorial, they will look deep in to the structure of DNA & report the way it makes itself & the way it determines all of your traits. First, let's look at how DNA was discovered.
DNA is of a class of molecules called nucleic acids. Nucleic acids were originally discovered in 1868 by Friedrich Meischer, a Swiss biologist, who isolated DNA from pus cells on bandages. Although Meischer suspected that nucleic acids might contain genetic information, he could not confirm it.
So scientists had theorized about the informational role of DNA for a long time, but nobody knew how this information was encoded & transmitted. Plenty of scientists guessed that the structure of the molecule was important to this technique. In 1953, James D. Watson & Francis Crick discovered the structure of DNA at Cambridge University. The story was described in James Watson's book "The Double Helix" & brought to the screen in the film, "The Race for the Double Helix." Fundamentally, Watson & Crick used molecular modeling techniques & information from other investigators (including Maurice Wilkins, Rosalind Franklin, Erwin Chargaff & Linus Pauling) to solve the structure of DNA. Watson, Crick & Wilkins received the Nobel Prize in Medicine for the discovery of DNA's structure (Franklin, who was Wilkins' collaborator & provided a key piece of information that exposed the structure to Watson & Crick, died before the prize was awarded).
In 1943, Oswald Avery & colleagues at Rockefeller University showed that DNA taken from a bacterium, Streptococcus pneumonia, could make non-infectious bacteria become infectious. These results indicated that DNA was the information-containing molecule in the cell. The information role of DNA was further supported in 1952 when Alfred Hershey & Martha Chase demonstrated that to make new viruses, a bacteriophage virus injected DNA, not protein, in to the host cell.
Changes in the DNA of cells in multicellular organisms produce variations in the characteristics of a species. Over long periods of time, natural choice acts on these variations to evolve or alter the species.
The presence or absence of DNA facts at a crime scene could mean the difference between a guilty verdict & an acquittal. DNA is so important that the United States government has spent immense amounts of money to unravel the sequence of DNA in the human genome in hopes of understanding & finding cures for plenty of genetic diseases. Finally, from the DNA of cell, they can clone an animal, a plant or perhaps even a human being.
But what is DNA? Where is it found? What makes it so special? How does it work? In this editorial, they will look deep in to the structure of DNA & report the way it makes itself & the way it determines all of your traits. First, let's look at how DNA was discovered.
DNA is of a class of molecules called nucleic acids. Nucleic acids were originally discovered in 1868 by Friedrich Meischer, a Swiss biologist, who isolated DNA from pus cells on bandages. Although Meischer suspected that nucleic acids might contain genetic information, he could not confirm it.
So scientists had theorized about the informational role of DNA for a long time, but nobody knew how this information was encoded & transmitted. Plenty of scientists guessed that the structure of the molecule was important to this technique. In 1953, James D. Watson & Francis Crick discovered the structure of DNA at Cambridge University. The story was described in James Watson's book "The Double Helix" & brought to the screen in the film, "The Race for the Double Helix." Fundamentally, Watson & Crick used molecular modeling techniques & information from other investigators (including Maurice Wilkins, Rosalind Franklin, Erwin Chargaff & Linus Pauling) to solve the structure of DNA. Watson, Crick & Wilkins received the Nobel Prize in Medicine for the discovery of DNA's structure (Franklin, who was Wilkins' collaborator & provided a key piece of information that exposed the structure to Watson & Crick, died before the prize was awarded).
In 1943, Oswald Avery & colleagues at Rockefeller University showed that DNA taken from a bacterium, Streptococcus pneumonia, could make non-infectious bacteria become infectious. These results indicated that DNA was the information-containing molecule in the cell. The information role of DNA was further supported in 1952 when Alfred Hershey & Martha Chase demonstrated that to make new viruses, a bacteriophage virus injected DNA, not protein, in to the host cell.
No comments:
Post a Comment