Nucleic acids

Abstract

Before the 1940s it was generally thought that proteins were the genetic material, carrying and transmitting the genetic information required for development and reproduction; then, in 1944, Oswald T. Avery and his co-workers provided convincing evidence that deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) was the active genetic principle. Nevertheless, many geneticists did not accept their conclusions and it was not until the early 1950s, by which time further evidence had accumulated, that it became accepted that DNA was the genetic material (Question 2.6). In all organisms the genetic information is stored, replicated and transmitted by DNA, the only exception being certain viruses, where another nucleic acid, ribonucleic acid (RNA) carries the genetic information. However, as we shall see (Chapter 8), the principal functions of RNA are in protein synthesis.