NEET BIOLOGY

Detailed explanation-1: -In 1952, Alfred Hershey and Martha Chase took an effort to find the genetic material in organisms. Their experiments led to an unequivocal proof to DNA as genetic material. Bacteriophages (viruses that affect bacteria) were the key element for Hershey and Chase experiment.

Detailed explanation-2: -Hershey and Chase concluded that protein was not genetic material, and that DNA was genetic material. Unlike Avery’s experiments on bacterial transformations, the Hershey-Chase experiments were more widely and immediately accepted among scientists.

Detailed explanation-3: -Alfred Hershey and Martha Chase showed that only the DNA of a virus needs to enter a bacterium to infect it. Their experiment provided strong support for the idea that genes are made of DNA. They firmly restated the conclusion that Avery, et al. had more tentatively proposed in 1944.

Detailed explanation-4: -In their experiments, Hershey and Chase showed that when bacteriophages, which are composed of DNA and protein, infect bacteria, their DNA enters the host bacterial cell, but most of their protein does not. Hershey and Chase and subsequent discoveries all served to prove that DNA is the hereditary material.

Detailed explanation-5: -The Hershey and Chase experiments used bacteriophages, or viruses capable of infecting bacteria, in order to determine whether genes were made of proteins or DNA. Hershey and Chase labeled the protein coats of one set of bacteriophages with sulfur and the DNA of a second set with phosphorus.