quality:corruption
History

DNA was first isolated by the Swiss physician Friedrich Miescher who, in 1869, discovered a microscopic substance in the pus of discarded surgical bandages. As it resided in the nuclei of cells, he called it "nuclein". In 1878, Albrecht Kossel isolated the non-protein component of "nuclein", nucleic acid, and later isolated its five primary nucleobases.

In 1909, Phoebus Levene identified the base, sugar, and phosphate nucleotide unit of RNA (then named "yeast nucleic acid"). In 1929, Levene identified deoxyribose sugar in "thymus nucleic acid" (DNA). Levene suggested that DNA consisted of a string of four nucleotide units linked together through the phosphate groups ("tetranucleotide hypothesis"). Levene thought the chain was short and the bases repeated in a fixed order. In 1927, Nikolai Koltsov proposed that inherited traits would be inherited via a "giant hereditary molecule" made up of "two mirror strands that would replicate in a semi-conservative fashion using each strand as a template". In 1928, Frederick Griffith in his experiment discovered that traits of the "smooth" form of Pneumococcus could be transferred to the "rough" form of the same bacteria by mixing killed "smooth" bacteria with the live "rough" form. This system provided the first clear suggestion that DNA carries genetic information.

In 1933, while studying virgin sea urchin eggs, Jean Brachet suggested that DNA is found in the cell nucleus and that RNA is present exclusively in the cytoplasm. At the time, "yeast nucleic acid" (RNA) was thought to occur only in plants, while "thymus nucleic acid" (DNA) only in animals. The latter was thought to be a tetramer, with the function of buffering cellular pH.

In 1937, William Astbury produced the first X-ray diffraction patterns that showed that DNA had a regular structure.

In 1943, Oswald Avery, along with co-workers Colin MacLeod and Maclyn McCarty, identified DNA as the transforming principle, supporting Griffith's suggestion (Avery–MacLeod–McCarty experiment). Erwin Chargaff developed and published observations now known as Chargaff's rules, stating that in DNA from any species of any organism, the amount of guanine should be equal to cytosine and the amount of adenine should be equal to thymine.

Late in 1951, Francis Crick started working with James Watson at the Cavendish Laboratory within the University of Cambridge. DNA's role in heredity was confirmed in 1952 when Alfred Hershey and Martha Chase in the Hershey–Chase experiment showed that DNA is the genetic material of the enterobacteria phage T2.

In May 1952, Raymond Gosling, a graduate student working under the supervision of Rosalind Franklin, took an X-ray diffraction image, labeled as " Photo 51 ", at high hydration levels of DNA. This photo was given to Watson and Crick by Maurice Wilkins and was critical to their obtaining the correct structure of DNA. Franklin told Crick and Watson that the backbones had to be on the outside. Before then, Linus Pauling, and Watson and Crick, had erroneous models with the chains inside and the bases pointing outwards. Franklin's identification of the space group for DNA crystals revealed to Crick that the two DNA strands were antiparallel. In February 1953, Linus Pauling and Robert Corey proposed a model for nucleic acids containing three intertwined chains, with the phosphates near the axis, and the bases on the outside. Watson and Crick completed their model, which is now accepted as the first correct model of the double helix of DNA. On 28 February 1953 Crick interrupted patrons' lunchtime at The Eagle pub in Cambridge, England to announce that he and Watson had "discovered the secret of life".

The 25 April 1953 issue of the journal Nature published a series of five articles giving the Watson and Crick double-helix structure DNA and evidence supporting it. The structure was reported in a letter titled " MOLECULAR STRUCTURE OF NUCLEIC ACIDS A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid ", in which they said, "It has not escaped our notice that the specific pairing we have postulated immediately suggests a possible copying mechanism for the genetic material." This letter was followed by a letter from Franklin and Gosling, which was the first publication of their own X-ray diffraction data and of their original analysis method. Then followed a letter by Wilkins and two of his colleagues, which contained an analysis of in vivo B-DNA X-ray patterns, and which supported the presence in vivo of the Watson and Crick structure.

In April 2023, scientists, based on new evidence, concluded that Rosalind Franklin was a contributor and "equal player" in the discovery process of DNA, rather than otherwise, as may have been presented subsequently after the time of the discovery.

In 1962, after Franklin's death, Watson, Crick, and Wilkins jointly received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Nobel Prizes are awarded only to living recipients. A debate continues about who should receive credit for the discovery.

In an influential presentation in 1957, Crick laid out the central dogma of molecular biology, which foretold the relationship between DNA, RNA, and proteins, and articulated the "adaptor hypothesis". Final confirmation of the replication mechanism that was implied by the double-helical structure followed in 1958 through the Meselson–Stahl experiment. Further work by Crick and co-workers showed that the genetic code was based on non-overlapping triplets of bases, called codons, allowing Har Gobind Khorana, Robert W. Holley, and Marshall Warren Nirenberg to decipher the genetic code. These findings represent the birth of molecular biology.

In 1986, DNA analysis was first used for criminal investigative purposes when police in the UK requested Alec Jeffreys of the University of Leicester to verify or disprove a suspect's rape-murder "confession". In this particular case, the suspect had confessed to two rape-murders, but had later retracted his confession. DNA testing at the university labs soon disproved the veracity of the suspect's original "confession", and the suspect was exonerated from the murder-rape charges.