Molecular Biology

CSIR-NET/JRF
 Introduction and Background history

“Nucleic Acid as a carrier of genetic information”

Charles Darwin (1859) and Alfred R. Wallace (1858): Theory of evolution-Survival of the
fittest-Variation occurs in all forms of life throughout the evolution.

Mendel’s Discoveries (1865): Principles of Heredity-Transmission of traits from one to

next generation.

Walter S. Sutton (1903): Chromosomal theory of inheritance. Coins the term “genes” for
Mendel’s “characters”

Thomas H. Morgan and collaborators (1915): Gene linkage and Crossing over- Genes are
linked to chromosomes-Established the Chromosomal theory of heredity-The inheritance
of sex-linked gene in Drosophila – Chromosome mapping or genetic mapping.

Genetic variability-Mutation-Selective advantages- New favourable attributes-Basis of

evolution.

Archibald E. Garrod (1902)- Gene-Protein relationship

Beadle and Tatum (1941):
One gene-One enzyme
hypothesis or one gene–one
polypeptide hypothesis.
 Frederick Griffith’s experiments (1928)

Transformation of a genetic characterstic of a bacterial cell (Streptococcus pneumoniae)

by addition of heat-killed cells of a genetically different cell.
 Oswald T. Avery, Colin M.
MacLeod, and Maclyn McCarty
(1944):
DNA carries genetic specificity

Pancreatic ribonuclease
deoxyribonuclease protease
enzymes

Degrade DNA Degrade proteins Degrade RNA

No transformation transformation transformation

Isolation of chemically pure transforming agent

Alfred D. Hershey and Martha
Chase’s experiment (1952):

Demonstration that only the DNA

component of Bacteriophage T2 carries the
genetic information and that the protein
coat serves only as a protective shell.
 DNA double helix

The X-ray diffraction photograph of DNA molecule was taken by

Maurice Wilkins and Rosalin Franklin in 1952. The double helix
structure of DNA was proposed by James D. Watson and Crick in
1953.
The 3’-5’ phophodiester linkage connects the nucleotides of DNA
polynucleotide chain
The replication of DNA
 Chargaff’s Rules (1949)
A=T, G=C
Four nucleotides (A, T, G, C) are not present in equal amounts.
The ratio of the four nucleotides vary from one species to other.
In 1869, Friedrich Miescher first identified the “nuclein” inside
the nuclei of human white blood cells.
Nuclein was called as deoxyribonucleic acid or DNA.

Phoebus Levene, in 1919, proposed the polynucleotide

structure of DNA. He discovered the order of the three major
components of a single nucleotide i. e. phosphate-sugar-base.
 dATP, dGTP, dCTP, dTTP

Arthur Kornberg demonstrated (1956) the DNA synthesis in bacteria.

Meselson and Stahl’s
experiment (1958):
Two strands of the
double helix permanently
separate from each other
during DNA replication.
 β-globin WT α globin WT β-globin S
Gene controls the
amino acid sequence in
proteins

glu val

WT hemoglobin Sickle cell hemoglobin

Normal shaped Sickle shaped

red blood cell red blood cell
RNA: Ribonucleic acid
The central dogma of molecular biology (Francis Crick, 1956)
tRNA
Transcription and Translation
RNA synthesis