History of DNA

By dana.nicole.ward2020

  • Miescher

    Meischer isolated phosphate-rich chemicals from the nuclei of a white blood cell and called it nuclein. How he discovered this is he filtered cells with sodium sulfate, purified the nuclei, put the nuclei through alkaline extraction followed by acidification, and formed the precipitate Miescher called nuclein (DNA). This paved the way for the identification of DNA as the carrier of inheritance.

  • Chargaff

    Chargaff discovered two key points in his research; that different species have different amounts of bases or Adenine to Guanine varies from species to species, and that DNA has a fixed ratio of bases or Adenine to Thymine is 1:1 and Cytosine to Guanine is 1:1. He discovered this by isolating DNA and separating purines and pyrimidines based on solubility. This proved that DNA is a primary constitute of genes.