Biophysical Studies on the Interaction of Phenathidyes with Deoxyribonucleic Acidsazinium
IR@IICB: CSIR-Indian Institute of Chemical Biology, Kolkata
View Archive Info| Field | Value | |
| Title |
Biophysical Studies on the Interaction of Phenathidyes with Deoxyribonucleic Acidsazinium
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| Creator |
Paul, Puja
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| Subject |
Chemistry
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| Description |
It was known for many years that living things inherit traits from their parents. These observations led to
agriculture, breeding and cultivation of plants of desirable characteristics. Firming up the details took quite
some time and researchers did not understand exactly how traits were passed to the next generation until the middle of the twentieth century. Now it is clear that genes carry our traits through generations and that genes are made of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). The history of DNA research began with Friedrich Miescher, a Swiss biologist, who in 1868 detected a phosphorus-containing substance from the nuclei of pus cells obtained from discarded surgical bandages. He named it ‘nuclein’ consisting of an acidic portion which we know today as DNA. Even though Miescher and many others following him suspected that nuclein might play a key role in cell inheritance, but their lack of chemical diversity compared to proteins ruled out such a possibility. But in 1943 Avery and his colleagues at the Hospital of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research used bacteria to provide the first evidence that DNA is the bearer of genetic information. In 1952 Hershey and Chase
showed that it is the DNA part of the T2 viral particle furnishing the genetic information for the replication of the virus. By 1952, much was known about DNA as the sole substance capable of storing practically all the information needed to create a living being. What was not yet known was how the elusive DNA looked like, or the mechanism by which genetic information is passed on to the next generation remained the single greatest unanswered question in biology till 1953. It was in that year that James Watson, an American geneticist, and Francis Crick, an English physicist worked at the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge and proposed a double helical structure for DNA. The sentence ‘This structure has novel features which are of considerable biological interest’ may be one of science’s most famous understatements that paved the way for a scientific breakthrough in the name of DNA [1]. This was the culmination of a brilliant piece of work and a discovery that has proven to be the key to molecular biology and modern biotechnology. Using information derived from a number of other scientific works like X-ray fibre diffraction patterns generated by Rosalind Franklin, Maurice Wilkins, and their associates at the Wheatstone Physics Laboratory, King’s College [2,3] and the chemical evidence on base complementarity of Chargaff (1950), Watson and Crick were able to intelligently assemble the information like pieces of a puzzle to produce their model of the structure of DNA.
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| Date |
2012
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| Type |
Thesis
NonPeerReviewed |
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| Format |
application/pdf
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| Identifier |
http://www.eprints.iicb.res.in/2070/1/PUJA_PAUL_THESIS.pdf
Paul, Puja (2012) Biophysical Studies on the Interaction of Phenathidyes with Deoxyribonucleic Acidsazinium. PhD thesis, Jadavpur University. |
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| Relation |
http://www.eprints.iicb.res.in/2070/
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