Topic > The discovery of DNA - 1169

The identification of a substance/phenomenon/condition(s) is the first step towards a new discovery or invention of substantial application (human or otherwise). In light of this fact, knowledge of the discovery of DNA is vital to appreciate the beauty of the evolution of events that led to the discovery of DNA. Unlike the common belief that DNA was discovered by the American biologist James Watson and the English physicist Francis Crick, the genetic material was first identified by the Swiss physiological chemist Friedrich Miescher around 1860. He called them “nuclein”. Wanting to separate and identify the proteins present in white blood cells, he discovered a material similar to proteins but with a high phosphorus content inside the white blood cells. Sensing the importance of his findings, Miesher wrote: "It seems probable to me that a whole family of slightly variable phosphorus-containing substances will appear, as a group of nucleins, equivalent to proteins." It was only in 1953 that Watson and Crick brought together experimental information from various researchers to uncover the three-dimensional structure of DNA. Although various improvisations and extensions have been made to the Watson Crick model, the four main propositions remain the same: • DNA is a double-stranded helix, with the two strands connected by hydrogen bonds. A base is always paired with T and C is always paired with G, which is consistent with and explains… half of the paper…, with which the redox portion collides with the electrode and transfers electrons [24] • G-rich and C-rich DNAs individually form the parallel G-quadruplex and I-motif, respectively, under the molecular crowding condition, and the 1:1 mixture folds into the parallel G-quadruplex and I-motif but does not form a duplex. ITC measurements indicated that the thermodynamic stability (ΔG°20) of duplex formation between G-rich and C-rich DNAs in the uncrowded condition was -10.2 kcal mol-1, while only a small Heat change in ITC measurements under molecular crowding conditions. These ITC results also demonstrated that the molecular crowding condition prevents any duplex formation between G-rich and C-rich DNAs. These results indicate that a structural polymorphism of telomere DNAs is induced by molecular crowding in vivo [25]