DNA

SC/NATS 1730, XXXIII DNA 1

Nucleic Acids

z In the 1860s, Swiss chemist Friedrich

Miescher discovered that cell nuclei
contained acids not found elsewhere. He
called these nucleic acids.
z By 1900, biochemists had established that
nucleic acids all contained:
z 4 nitrogenous bases,
z a five-carbon sugar, and
z molecules of phosphoric acid.

SC/NATS 1730, XXXIII DNA 2

Nucleotides

z Any nucleic acid it

seemed could be built up
from units that each
contained
z one molecule of one of
the bases
z one molecule of the 5-
carbon sugar
z one molecule of
phosphoric acid.
z These building block units
were called nucleotides.

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 Polynucleotides
z A complete molecule of
a nucleic acid was a
collection of
nucleotides, or a
polynucleotide for short.
z But how they are
assembled was a major
question.
z At right is a model
suggested by Alexander
Todd in 1951.

SC/NATS 1730, XXXIII DNA 4

The 5-carbon sugars

z Any polynucleotide contains only one kind of

sugar.
z The sugars found in nucleic acids are unusual in
that they have 5 carbon atoms in each molecule.
z The usual is 6 carbon atoms.

SC/NATS 1730, XXXIII DNA 5

The 5-carbon sugars, 2

z There are two basic 5-carbon sugars in nucleic acids:

z ribose and de-oxyribose.
z Note that de-oxyribose has one less oxygen atom than
ribose, hence the name.
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 The two nucleic acids
z Therefore, there are 2 kinds of nucleic acids
z RNA – ribonucleic acid
z Composed of nucleotides, each having one of four
nitrogenous bases, a molecule of phosphoric acid and a
molecule of ribose.
z DNA – deoxyribonucleic acid
z Composed of nucleotides, each having one of four
nitrogenous bases, a molecule of phosphoric acid and a
molecule of deoxyribose.
z In the late 1920s, it was discovered that DNA is
found almost exclusively in the chromosomes, while
RNA was actually mostly outside the nucleus, in the
cytoplasm of the cell.
SC/NATS 1730, XXXIII DNA 7

The nitrogenous
bases
z DNA has four possible
bases
z 2 are purines
z Adenine

z Guanine

z 2 are pyrimidines

z Cytosine

z Thymine

z RNA is similar but in place

of Thymine it has a
different pyrimidine, Uracil.

SC/NATS 1730, XXXIII DNA 8

Mechanical Models
z The construction toy
approach to discovering the
physical structure of a
complex molecule.
z Actual ball and stick
constructions built to scale of
a molecule under study, so
as to get the angles and
distances corresponding to
physical theory.
z An American innovation,
derided as unscientific by
most European scientists.

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 Linus Pauling and Mechanical
Models
z Linus Pauling at the
California Institute of
Technology was the leader
in this work.
z His book The Nature of
the Chemical Bond was
the standard text in the
field.
z In 1951, Pauling
discovered the basic
structure of many
protein molecules
(polypeptides) by
building such 3-
dimensional models.

SC/NATS 1730, XXXIII DNA 10

Alpha-helix model.
z One of Pauling’s major
discoveries was the alpha-
helix structure of many
proteins.
z So called because, he
learned, the molecular chain
continually crossed over on
itself, making the shape of
the Greek letter alpha, α, and
then twisted into the coil
shape of a helix.
SC/NATS 1730, XXXIII DNA 11

Chargaff’s Rules
z One of the interesting discoveries, coming
right out of standard chemical research
methods concerned the makeup of DNA.
z In DNA samples, the relative amounts of sugar,
phosphates, and bases was constant.
z Every nucleotide had one of each.
z But there were 4 different bases, and their
amounts varied widely.

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 Chargaff’s Rules, 2
z Erwin Chargaff, a chemist at
Columbia University in New
York discovered in 1950 that:
z The amount of guanine = the
amount of cytosine
z The amount of thymine = the
amount of adenine.
z These are called Chargaff’s
rules.

Erwin Chargaff

SC/NATS 1730, XXXIII DNA 13

The Gene: Protein or Nucleic

Acid?
z In 1944, Oswald Avery
fed DNA from donor
bacteria to recipient
bacteria.
z Some of the recipients then
began to function like the
donor bacteria.
z Therefore Avery
concluded that the DNA
had transmitted
hereditable information.
SC/NATS 1730, XXXIII DNA 14

The Gene: Protein or Nucleic

Acid?, 2
z In 1952, Martha Chase and
Alfred Hershey (of the
Phage Group) did more
experiments and showed
that only the DNA of a
phage had infected a
bacterial host, with similar
results.
z DNA was therefore much
more strongly indicated as
the likely carrier of the
genes.

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5
 Crystallography – X-Ray
Diffraction

zW. L. Bragg zW. H. Bragg

z W. H. Bragg and W. L. Bragg, father and son,

invented the discipline of crystallography in 1912.
z They used it to study the structure of many simpler
crystallized structures.
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Crystallography – X-Ray
Diffraction, 2
z Britain was the center of
crystallography in the
twentieth century.
z W. L. Bragg, the son, was
the head of the Medical
Research Division of the
Cavendish Laboratories at
Cambridge in the 1950s,
which was one of the main
research centres in
crystallography

SC/NATS 1730, XXXIII DNA 17

Crystallography – X-Ray
Diffraction, 3
z Another was King’s
College at the University
of London.
z At King’s, the head
crystallographer was
Rosalind Franklin, who
was studying the
structure of DNA using
x-ray diffraction.

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6
 James D. Watson
z 1928 –
z Born in Chicago, took a biology
degree from the University of Chicago
at age 19.
zJames Watson z Did his graduate studies at Indiana
University under Salvador Luria, one
of the original Phage Group.
z Watson completed his Ph.D. in 1950
at age 22.
z Luria admitted him to the select Phage
Group.
zWatson & Luria
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Watson in search of the gene

z Watson’s main scientific interest
was to discover the nature of the
gene.
z He continued his research with a
post-doctoral fellowship in
Copenhagen, doing work on
phages, and learning some
biochemistry.
z While attending a conference in
Naples, Watson heard a talk by
Maurice Wilkins of Kings College, zMaurice Wilkins
London, on x-ray diffraction photos
of DNA.
SC/NATS 1730, XXXIII DNA 20

Watson wants to learn about x-

ray diffraction
z Watson talked to Wilkins about x-ray
diffraction of DNA.
z He learned that there was much work going
on at the interdisciplinary medical research
division of the Cavendish Laboratories at
Cambridge University.
z With Luria’s help, he obtained a post-doctoral
fellowship at the Cavendish, where he arrived in
1951.

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7
 Francis Crick
z 1916 –
z Originally trained in physics, Crick
interrupted his studies to work for
the military during World War II.
z After the war, Crick decided to turn to
biology.
z He was enrolled in the Ph.D.
program at Cambridge University
and doing his work at the
Cavendish Laboratories when
Watson arrived in 1951.
z Crick was then 35 years old.

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What is Life?
z Erwin Schrödinger’s 1944 book,
What is Life?, was the inspiration for
several young physicists during and
just after World War II, who radically
changed their careers from physics
to biology.
z Schrödinger showed how the
intellectual apparatus of physics could
be applied to issues in biology.
z Among these were Maurice Wilkins
and Francis Crick.

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Watson and Crick

z Watson and Crick
became friends almost
immediately.
z They both had a special
interest in DNA.
z They had radically different
backgrounds and different
areas of expertise.
z They had sharply different
personalities.
z The complemented each
other perfectly.

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 Multi-disciplinary approach of
Watson and Crick
z Watson was a biologist.
z Crick had solid training in physics
z Working at the Cavendish, they were able to use
techniques from several disciplines and to share
their ideas with specialists in other areas, who
could be of help to them.
z They were the perfect illustration of the
advantages offered for cooperative work at the
multi-disciplinary Cavendish Laboratories.

SC/NATS 1730, XXXIII DNA 25

The search for the structure of

DNA
z At the Cavendish, both Watson and Crick had major
projects which were supposed to occupy most of
their time.
z Watson was supposed to be learning the fundamentals of
x-ray diffraction crystallography. The Cavendish was the
place to be doing that. The Medical Research Division was
headed up by W. L. Bragg, who, with his father, practically
invented the field.
z Crick was working on his Ph.D. dissertation.
z Nevertheless, their common interest in DNA kept
bringing them back to that and trying out new ideas.
SC/NATS 1730, XXXIII DNA 26

Developments elsewhere
z Watson and Crick were spurred on by the
work emerging from other research centres
and were quick to follow up on new
developments.
z In 1951, Linus Pauling discovered the α-helix
structure of proteins using molecular models.
z In 1952, Martha Chase and Alfred Hershey
established that DNA was probably the carrier of
heredity, not protein.

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 Developments elsewhere, 2
z More developments:
z At King’s College,
London, Rosalind
Franklin had taken some
crucial x-ray photos of
DNA that strongly
suggested that the
structure was helical.

The stepped cross sign

in this photo of DNA
was characteristic of a
helical structure.

SC/NATS 1730, XXXIII DNA 28

Developments elsewhere, 2
z Erwin Chargaff came to Cambridge in 1952
to give a talk, attended by Watson and Crick.
z He mentioned “Chagaff’s Rules” – that in a DNA
sample, the amount of guanine equals the
amount of cytosine and the amount of adenine
equals the amount of thymine.
z Though both Watson and Crick had heard of
these rules before, Chargaff’s visit put them back
in the forefront of their minds.

SC/NATS 1730, XXXIII DNA 29

Serious model building

z In fits and starts, Watson and Crick sorted
through different ideas about the structure of
DNA.
z Finally in April, 1953, with the benefit of
foreknowledge of Rosalind Franklin’s x-ray
pictures and Chargaff’s rules, they began
using Linus Pauling’s model building
technique to try to construct a 3-dimensional
model of DNA that would fit all they already
knew.
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10
 Fitting Chargaff’s Rules

zThymine bonded to Adenine zCytosine bonded to Guanine

z As Crick said later, it should have been obvious that

Chargaff’s rules implied that the bases that were
equal in number somehow go together.
z What he found was that they did.
SC/NATS 1730, XXXIII DNA 31

The satisfactory model

z The model they built fit Rosalind Franklin’s pictures,

incorporated Chargaff’s rules as an essential feature, and
satisfied all the requirements of physical chemistry as to bond
angles and distances.
z They called Wilkins and Franklin at King’s College, who came
to inspect and approve the model.

SC/NATS 1730, XXXIII DNA 32

Publication in Nature
z Their results his the scientific world as a bombshell
in the form of three papers in the journal Nature on
April 25, 1953.
z This date, 1953, is the 8th and last date you must
remember in this course.
z The first paper was Watson and Crick’s description
of their mechanical model.
z The second was by Maurice Wilkins and his
associates, and the third was by Rosalind Franklin
and her assistant.
z The 2nd and 3rd papers provided the data that were
satisfied by the Watson-Crick model.

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11
 The Structure of DNA
z The main issues of DNA structure that were
solved by Watson and Crick:
z It had a helical structure.
z It had two strands (a double helix).
z The backbone of the strands was on the outside
of the molecule, and the strands pointed in
opposite directions.
z The x-ray work by Rosalind Franklin confirmed
these conclusions..

SC/NATS 1730, XXXIII DNA 34

The Structure of DNA, 2

z The arrangement of the bases:
z The strands are held together by bonds between
the bases on opposing strands.
z Guanine bonds with Cytosine
z Adenine bonds with Thymine
z This is consistent with Chargaff’s rules.

ƒ The G-C or A-T combinations could be turned either

way and would all fit in the same space.

SC/NATS 1730, XXXIII DNA 35

Molecular Biology
z Biology has not been the same since April 25, 1953.
z Almost every aspect of biology is affected by our
understanding of DNA.
z Research in DNA and related matters has become
the core of biology.
z A new branch of biology, molecular biology, began
at that time.
z It investigates biological functions at the molecular, i.e.,
chemical, level, starting from the understanding of how the
DNA molecule – and the related RNA molecule –
accomplish what they do.

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12
 The Central Dogma
z The Central Dogma (as it is called) of
molecular biology, as formulated by Watson
and Crick on how DNA controls heredity:
z There are two separate functions:
z The Autocatalytic function is how DNA reproduces
itself.
z The Heterocatalytic Function is how DNA controls
the development of the body – how it conveys its
genetic information to the rest of the body.

SC/NATS 1730, XXXIII DNA 37

The Autocatalytic Function

z The DNA molecule is the direct
template for its own replication.
z During cell division, the DNA
double helix uncoils, separating
at the purine-pyrimidine bond.
z A new strand forms matching
the corresponding bond at the
purine or pyrimidine base with
the same complementary base
that had been attached there
before.

SC/NATS 1730, XXXIII DNA 38

The Autocatalytic Function

z Thus each strand of DNA produces not a copy of
itself, but a copy of its complement, which then coils
back together making two identical DNA molecules.
z Mutations are errors in this copying function. If the
template is not copied correctly due to, say,
radiation interference or chemical imbalance, the
resulting molecules of DNA are not the same as the
original.
z The base pairs are very similar to each other. A G-C
combination is almost identical to an A-T combination. It
would take only a slight dislocation of a bond to change
one into another.

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 The Heterocatalytic Function

z When the body determines that it requires more of something (e.g. a

protein) in a cell, an enzyme is secreted into the cell nucleus, which
causes the DNA molecule to open up at a specified place, breaking
the bonds between the purines and pyrimidines.

SC/NATS 1730, XXXIII DNA 40

The Heterocatalytic Function, 2

z At the place where the DNA is open, enzymes cause a backbone of

ribose and phospate to form and attract to it the purines and
pyrimidines that are the complements of the exposed bases on the
DNA. This forms a piece of RNA (which is single stranded).
z The piece of RNA that has formed and copied the sequence of
bases onto its own molecule then migrates out of the nucleus into
the cytoplasm, where it becomes the template for protein synthesis.
This piece of RNA is called messenger-RNA or mRNA for short.

SC/NATS 1730, XXXIII DNA 41

Codons
z There are four different bases that form the
sequences in DNA.
z Think of this as an alphabet with four letters A C G T.
z The sequence of these “letters” on a stretch of DNA is
transferred to messenger RNA.
z Actually the complement of the sequence is
transferred, with Uracil substituting for Thymine. In any
case it is still a sequence written in four letters.
z Proteins are made up of strings of amino acids.
z There are twenty amino acids that go into proteins.
z The sequences of bases on the mRNA determine
which amino acid goes next in the sequence on a
protein when it is being formed.
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 Codons, 2
z To make four “letters” point
to 20 different amino acids,
they are grouped in threes.
Each group of three bases
is called a codon.
z Since there are 4 bases to
choose from for each “letter”
of the codon “word,” there
are 64 possible codons:
z 4 x 4 x 4 = 64

SC/NATS 1730, XXXIII DNA 43

Codons, 3

z Each codon points to a particular amino acid.

z Since there are 64 codons and only 20 amino acids,
several codons point to the same amino acid.
SC/NATS 1730, XXXIII DNA 44

Protein Synthesis
z The actual process for protein
synthesis is as follows:
z mRNA travels to the
cytoplasm where it meets
ribosomes.
z The mRNA passes through
each ribosome, where each
codon is “read” and matched
with a piece of transfer RNA
(tRNA), which is specific to that codon.
z The tRNA brings with it the amino acid that corresponds to the
particular codon.
z A process in the ribosome causes the tRNA to latch on to the
mRNA and then release the amino acid to be added to the
string of amino acids of the protein under construction.
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 One Way Process
z In the general course of DNA-body interactions,
information flows from the DNA, to the body, not
vice-versa
z There is no mechanism here to support the inheritance of
acquired characteristics.
z Changes in the environment of an individual would not
affect that individual’s DNA.
z The DNA therefore is much like Weismann’s germ
plasm.
z Except: Newly discovered retroviruses can affect the
DNA, leaving the door partly open on the question of
inheritance of acquired characters.
SC/NATS 1730, XXXIII DNA 46

Recombinant DNA
z The complexity of DNA has made it very
difficult to study its particular sequences in
detail.
z Even a virus can have as many as 5000 base
pairs. A human has more like 100,000 base
pairs in its DNA.
z Breakthroughs in research came in the mid-
1970s with two techniques for working with
DNA.

SC/NATS 1730, XXXIII DNA 47

Recombinant DNA
z Cleaving enzymes – that have
the effect of cutting a piece of
DNA wherever it encounters a
certain sequence of bases.
z For example the enzyme ECORI
cuts DNA at the sequence
GAATC.
z DNA ligases are other enzymes
discovered that rejoin DNA
pieces.
z Thus DNA research had the
“scissors” and “paste” tools
necessary to manipulate DNA
and study the results of
experiments.

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 Cloning
z Cloning is the process of producing a strain
of DNA and then inserting that DNA into a
host where it will replicate. The replicated
DNA is called a clone.
z Cloning as a technique has many uses. For
example, it can be used to replicate rare
hormones and proteins such as insulin and
interferon that have much medical usage.
z Recently cloning has been taken to far a far
greater extent. Whole organisms have been
reproduced from DNA taken from other bodies.
SC/NATS 1730, XXXIII DNA 49

Insulin
z Insulin is a protein hormone produced in the
pancreas that the body uses to regulate blood sugar
concentrations.
z Diabetics have lost the ability to produce insulin and must
have an outside source of it.
z In the 1920s, insulin from cows and pigs was isolated and
made available to humans with diabetes. (Though it is not
identical to human insulin.)
z Supply was a major concern since the number of diabetics
was on the rise.
z Cloning insulin became an ideal usage for recombinant
DNA technology.

SC/NATS 1730, XXXIII DNA 50

The Manufacture of Insulin by

Cloning
z In 1978, Herbert Boyer and
colleagues at the University of
California in San Francisco
created a synthetic version of
human insulin using recombinant
DNA technology.
z The DNA sequence representing
the instructions on growing insulin
was separated and then inserted
into the bacterium E. coli.
z The E. coli then produced
prodigious amounts of human
insulin.

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 Cloning Whole Animals
z In 1997, the sheep
“Dolly” was cloned
from an adult
sheep. Dolly is an
exact replica of its
“mother” – the
animal from which
the cell was taken.

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Stem Cells
z Most cells in the body of
an adult animal are
specialized cells, which
have the capacity only to
reproduce themselves.
z Cells that have the ability
to divide and give rise to
different kinds of
zStem cells
specialized cells are
called stem cells.

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Stem Cells
z At conception, the fertilized egg is a stem cell capable
of dividing and becoming every different kind of cell in
the adult body.
z They are “Totipotent.”
z In humans, the cells that are produced in the first four
days or so after conception are all totipotent stems.
z At later embryonic stages and even in the grown adult,
there are stem cells with limited potential to grow into
different kinds of cells.
z These are called “Pluripotent.”

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 Stem cells, 2
z The medical potential of stem cells, both the
totipotent and pluripotent is enormous.
z If stem cells can be isolated, cultured, and then
grafted into patients, many degenerative diseases
could possibly be reversed.
z Cells generated from a patient’s own stem cells,
for example, would not be rejected by the body
the way that the cells of donor organs often are.
z Stem cells could be used to regenerate brain and
nerve cells, possibly heart muscle, and many
other possible uses.
SC/NATS 1730, XXXIII DNA 55

Ethical issues in Biotechnology

z There are ethical issues all the way along in
biotechnology because human beings are capable
of manipulating life as never before.
z Stem cell research raises the issue of where life begins
and whether cells from a human embryo should be used
for another human’s benefit.
z Present stem cell work concentrates on making
regenerative cells for the cure of diseases.
z But the possibility of cloning whole human beings has to be
considered.
z Dolly was cloned from a stem cell.

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