BIOMOLECULES AND ENZYMES

BIOLOGY

NUCLEIC ACIDS

Question [CLICK ON ANY CHOICE TO KNOW THE RIGHT ANSWER]
Which scientist discovered number thymine equals number adenine and number cytosine equals number guanine?
A
Avery
B
Griffith
C
Khorana
D
Chargoff
Explanation: 

Detailed explanation-1: -This sentence refers to the work of Erwin Chargaff, a biochemist at Columbia University. In the late 1940s, Chargaff analyzed the proportions of the four different types of base molecules in DNA, and found that DNA always contains equal amounts of guanine and cytosine, and equal amounts of adenine and thymine.

Detailed explanation-2: -Erwin Chargaff found that in DNA, the ratios of adenine (A) to thymine (T) and guanine (G) to cytosine (C) are equal. This parity is obvious in the final DNA structure.

Detailed explanation-3: -Key conclusions from Erwin Chargaff’s work are now known as Chargaff’s rules. The first and best known achievement was to show that in natural DNA the number of guanine units equals the number of cytosine units and the number of adenine units equals the number of thymine units.

Detailed explanation-4: -In 1948, Linus Pauling discovered that many proteins take the shape of an alpha helix, spiraled like a spring coil. In 1950, biochemist Erwin Chargaff found that the arrangement of nitrogen bases in DNA varied widely, but the amount of certain bases always occurred in a one-to-one ratio.

Detailed explanation-5: -Chargaff rule: The rule that in DNA there is always equality in quantity between the bases A and T and between the bases G and C. (A is adenine, T is thymine, G is guanine, and C is cytosine.) Named for the great Austrian-American biochemist Erwin Chargaff (1905-2002) at Columbia University who discovered this rule.

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