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12–1 DNA
Photo credit: Jacob Halaska/Index Stock Imagery, Inc.
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2. Griffith and Transformation
In 1928, British scientist Fredrick Griffith was trying to learn how certain types of bacteria caused pneumonia.
He isolated two different strains of pneumonia bacteria from mice and grew them in his lab.
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3. Griffith and Transformation
Griffith made two observations:
(1) The disease-causing strain of bacteria grew into smooth colonies on culture plates.
(2) The harmless strain grew into colonies with rough edges.
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4. Griffith and Transformation
Griffith's Experiments
Griffith set up four individual experiments.
Experiment 1: Mice were injected with the disease-causing strain of bacteria. The mice developed pneumonia and died.
Griffith injected mice with four different samples of bacteria. When injected separately, neither heat-killed, disease-causing bacteria nor live, harmless bacteria killed the mice. The two types injected together, however, caused fatal pneumonia. From this experiment, biologists inferred that genetic information could be transferred from one bacterium to another.
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5. Griffith and Transformation
Experiment 2: Mice were injected with the harmless strain of bacteria. These mice didn’t get sick.
Harmless bacteria (rough colonies)
Griffith injected mice with four different samples of bacteria. When injected separately, neither heat-killed, disease-causing bacteria nor live, harmless bacteria killed the mice. The two types injected together, however, caused fatal pneumonia. From this experiment, biologists inferred that genetic information could be transferred from one bacterium to another.
Lives
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6. Griffith and Transformation
Experiment 3: Griffith heated the disease-causing bacteria. He then injected the heat-killed bacteria into the mice. The mice survived.
Heat-killed disease-causing bacteria (smooth colonies)
Griffith injected mice with four different samples of bacteria. When injected separately, neither heat-killed, disease-causing bacteria nor live, harmless bacteria killed the mice. The two types injected together, however, caused fatal pneumonia. From this experiment, biologists inferred that genetic information could be transferred from one bacterium to another.
Lives
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7. Griffith and Transformation
Heat-killed disease-causing bacteria (smooth colonies)
Experiment 4: Griffith mixed his heat-killed, disease-causing bacteria with live, harmless bacteria and injected the mixture into the mice. The mice developed pneumonia and died.
Harmless bacteria (rough colonies)
Griffith injected mice with four different samples of bacteria. When injected separately, neither heat-killed, disease-causing bacteria nor live, harmless bacteria killed the mice. The two types injected together, however, caused fatal pneumonia. From this experiment, biologists inferred that genetic information could be transferred from one bacterium to another.
Live disease-causing bacteria (smooth colonies)
Dies of pneumonia
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8. Griffith and Transformation
Heat-killed disease-causing bacteria (smooth colonies)
Griffith concluded that the heat-killed bacteria passed their disease-causing ability to the harmless strain.
Harmless bacteria (rough colonies)
Griffith injected mice with four different samples of bacteria. When injected separately, neither heat-killed, disease-causing bacteria nor live, harmless bacteria killed the mice. The two types injected together, however, caused fatal pneumonia. From this experiment, biologists inferred that genetic information could be transferred from one bacterium to another.
Live disease-causing bacteria (smooth colonies)
Dies of pneumonia
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9. Griffith and Transformation
Griffith called this process transformation because one strain of bacteria (the harmless strain) had changed permanently into another (the disease-causing strain).
Griffith hypothesized that a factor must contain information that could change harmless bacteria into disease-causing ones.
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Avery and DNA
Avery and DNA
Oswald Avery repeated Griffith’s work to determine which molecule was most important for transformation.
Avery and his colleagues made an extract from the heat-killed bacteria that they treated with enzymes.
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Avery and DNA
The enzymes destroyed proteins, lipids, carbohydrates, and other molecules, including the nucleic acid RNA.
Transformation still occurred.
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Avery and DNA
Avery and other scientists repeated the experiment using enzymes that would break down DNA.
When DNA was destroyed, transformation did not occur. Therefore, they concluded that DNA was the transforming factor.
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Avery and DNA
Avery and other scientists discovered that the nucleic acid DNA stores and transmits the genetic information from one generation of an organism to the next.
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14. The Hershey-Chase Experiment
Alfred Hershey and Martha Chase studied viruses—nonliving particles smaller than a cell that can infect living organisms.
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15. The Hershey-Chase Experiment
Bacteriophages 
A virus that infects bacteria is known as a bacteriophage.
Bacteriophages are composed of a DNA or RNA core and a protein coat.
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16. The Hershey-Chase Experiment
If 35S was found in the bacteria, it would mean that the viruses’ protein had been injected into the bacteria.
Alfred Hershey and Martha Chase used different radioactive markers to label the DNA and proteins of bacteriophages. The bacteriophages injected only DNA into the bacteria, not proteins. From these results, Hershey and Chase concluded that the genetic material of the bacteriophage was DNA.
Phage infects bacterium
Bacteriophage with
suffur-35 in protein coat
No radioactivity inside bacterium
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17. The Hershey-Chase Experiment
If 32P was found in the bacteria, then it was the DNA that had been injected.
Alfred Hershey and Martha Chase used different radioactive markers to label the DNA and proteins of bacteriophages. The bacteriophages injected only DNA into the bacteria, not proteins. From these results, Hershey and Chase concluded that the genetic material of the bacteriophage was DNA.
Bacteriophage with
phosphorus-32 in DNA
Phage infects bacterium
Radioactivity inside bacterium
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18. The Hershey-Chase Experiment
Nearly all the radioactivity in the bacteria was from phosphorus (32P).
Hershey and Chase concluded that the genetic material of the bacteriophage was DNA, not protein.
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19. The Components and Structure of DNA
DNA is made up of nucleotides.
A nucleotide is a monomer of nucleic acids made up of:
Deoxyribose – 5-carbon Sugar
Phosphate Group
Nitrogenous Base
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20. The Components and Structure of DNA
There are four kinds of bases in in DNA:
adenine
guanine
cytosine
thymine
DNA is made up of nucleotides. Each nucleotide has three parts: a deoxyribose molecule, a phosphate group, and a nitrogenous base. There are four different bases in DNA: adenine, guanine, cytosine, and thymine.
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21. The Components and Structure of DNA
Chargaff's Rules
Erwin Chargaff discovered that:
The percentages of guanine [G] and cytosine [C] bases are almost equal in any sample of DNA.
The percentages of adenine [A] and thymine [T] bases are almost equal in any sample of DNA.
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22. The Components and Structure of DNA
X-Ray Evidence 
Rosalind Franklin used X-ray diffraction to get information about the structure of DNA.
She aimed an X-ray beam at concentrated DNA samples and recorded the scattering pattern of the X-rays on film.
This X-ray diffraction photograph of DNA was taken by Rosalind Franklin in the early 1950s. The X-shaped pattern in the center indicates that the structure of DNA is helical.
Photo credit: ©Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Archives/Peter Arnold, Inc.
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23. The Components and Structure of DNA
The Double Helix 
Using clues from Franklin’s pattern, James Watson and Francis Crick built a model that explained how DNA carried information and could be copied.
Watson and Crick's model of DNA was a double helix, in which two strands were wound around each other.
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24. The Components and Structure of DNA
DNA Double Helix
DNA is a double helix in which two strands are wound around each other. Each strand is made up of a chain of nucleotides. The two strands are held together by hydrogen bonds between adenine and thymine and between guanine and cytosine.
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25. The Components and Structure of DNA
Watson and Crick discovered that hydrogen bonds can form only between certain base pairs—adenine and thymine, and guanine and cytosine.
This principle is called base pairing.
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