GENETICS

LECTURE 6 | INTRODUCTION TO CENTRAL DOGMA

DNA • Avery, MacLeod, and McCarty Showed that
• Friedrich Miescher - Swiss chemist identified DNA Is the Substance That Transforms Bacteria
DNA
o While studying white blood cells
molecule is slightly acidic, high
percentage of phosphorous
• Nuclein – first name of DNA
• much higher phosphorous content and
resistance to proteolysis (protein digestion

• Friedrich Miescher (1869) – nuclein

• Phoebus Levene – three major components of
a single nucleotide
o Phosphate
o sugar
o base
• Erwin Chargaff – (other DNA molecule)
nucleotide composition of DNA varies among • Hershey and Chase Provided Evidence That
species, Chargaff's rule DNA Is the Genetic Material of T2 Phage
• Rosalind Franklin and Maurice Wilkins – x-ray
crystallography
• James Watson and English physicist Francis
Crick (1950) – double stranded DNA, Nature in
April 1953
o 1962: Nobel Prize in Physiology and
Medicine
• Groundbreaking experiments by Griffith, Avery,
Hershey, and Chase disproved the notion that
proteins were genetic material.
• Transformation - process where something from
the dead type S bacteria was transforming the
type R bacteria and S. Griffith

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GENETICS
LECTURE 6 | INTRODUCTION TO CENTRAL DOGMA
King’s College, London
“We realized that if DNA was
the gene material, then we
had just shown that genes
could crystalize
- Raymond Gosling
2. Rosalind Franklin
• Late 1950: Randall arranged for three-year
research fellowship that would fund
Rosalind Franklin in his laboratory
• Needed expertise in interpreting x-ray
images
• English physical chemist and x-ray
crystallographer expert
• Previously worked on x-ray diffraction
patterns in coal and carbon fiber
technology in Paris

• most of the 35S isotope was found in the

supernatant (sulfur found in protein)
• By comparison, only about 35% of the 32P was
found in the supernatant (Phosphate found in
DNA)
• Therefore, most of the DNA was located within
the bacterial cells in the pellet
DISCOVERY OF THE DNA
• 1868: DNA “Saga” began when Swiss
• biochemist Miescher isolated Nuclein
• 1910: Levene Tetranucleotide Hypothesis
• 1928: Griffith Transforming Principle
• 1944: Avery, MacLeod & McCarty DNA is
• Transforming Principle
• 1950: Chargaff’s Rules A=T, G=C
• 1952: Hershey & Chase Blender Experiment
• 1953: Watson & Crick A Structure for DNA

1. Maurice Wilkins
• King’s College, London
• Initially a nuclear physicist
• 1950: X ray diffraction work on ram sperm
and DNA from
• With grad student Raymond Gosling
• produced x ray
• photographs of DNA showing
• crystalline structure
• These photographs, shown at a
• conference in Naples,
• sparked James Watson’s interest in DNA

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GENETICS
LECTURE 6 | INTRODUCTION TO CENTRAL DOGMA
PHOTOGRAPH 51 • Erwin Chargaff was the key.

3. Linus Pauling
• American chemist, biochemist, peace activist
• Contributions to science include discovery of
alpha helix and beta sheet structure of
proteins, quantum chemistry resonance work
and the discovery of sickle cell anemia as a
molecular disease
• “The Nature of the Chemical Bond”
• Considered to be one of the 20 greatest
scientists of all time
• Watson and Crick were bubbling at the fact
that they had another chance to find out the
structure of DNA
• Photograph of the double helix was shown to
Watson by Wilkins
• Spring 1953 Watson and Crick was given official
orders to work structure of DNA again
• They needed more information, they needed
to figure out how the four components of DNA
went together
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JFMDR 2022-2023
GENETICS
LECTURE 6 | INTRODUCTION TO CENTRAL DOGMA
THE MOLECULAR STRUCTURE OF DNA • phosphate group is a phosphorous atom
DNA with four oxygen atoms bonded to it
• “Information molecule” o phosphorous atom in phosphate
• Genes - chromosomes are made up of has a marked tendency to bond to
thousands of shorter segments of DNA other oxygen atoms
• gene • phosphodiester bonds that join one DNA
• stores the directions for making protein nucleotide to another always link the 3’
carbon of the first nucleotide to the 5’
STRUCTURE OF DNA carbon of the second nucleotide
• DNA serves as universal information storage DEHYDRATION SYNTHESIS
molecule for all forms of life
• DNA molecules are polymers
• Nucleotides – DNA monomers
o Four nucleotide monomers
• Each nucleotide monomer is built from
three simple molecular parts;
o Deoxyribose sugar
o Phosphate group
o Nitrogenous base

NITROGENOUS BASES • Phosphodiester bonds in DNA polymers

connect the 5’ carbon of one nucleotide
to the 3’ carbon of another nucleotide
• Antiparallel orientation – important for the
copying of DNA
• Two strands of the helix run in
• opposite directions
• nucleotides forming each DNA strand are
connected by hydrogen bonds
• Complementary Base Pairing – creates
consistency in the nucleotide sequences of
NUCLEOTIDE the two DNA polymers that join together to
make a chromosome

BIOLOGICAL FUNCTION OF DNA

• proteins - DNA polymers direct the
production of other polymers
• genes – chromosome consists of smaller
segments
• codons - each gene is further divided into
three nucleotide subsegments
• codon from the original DNA gene is
matched with its corresponding amino
acid

• Deoxyribose - cyclical molecule

• fifth carbon atom is attached to the fourth
carbon of the ring
• hydroxyl group (-OH) attached to the third
carbon in the ring
• sugar and acid in all four monomers are the
same.
• deoxyribose – sugar in all four nucleotides

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JFMDR 2022-2023