DNA Change Over Time By: Sandra Moua Since the beginning human history people have wondered

how traits are inherited rom one generation to another! "ven though children resemble one parent most o spring seem to be a blend o the characteristics o both parents! Centuries o breeding o domestic plants and animals have shown that use ul traits can be accentuated by controlled mating# however# there was no scienti ic way to predict the outcome o a cross between two particular parents! Then in the $%&' that (regor Mendel ound that individual traits are determined by discrete ) actors#* later +nown as genes# which are inherited rom the parents! Mendel ocused on seven individual traits that he could distinguish! ,e ound that each trait has two alternate orms and by analy-ing the results o various crosses# he concluded that each alternative orm o a trait is speci ied by alternative orms! Mendel ound that genes do not blend due to the pea plant traits he chose to study! .n Mendel/s studies he believed that some genes are dominant# genes can combine in various ways# but always maintain their distinct identities! Mendel ound that di erent gene combinations rom parents resulted in speci ic ratios o dominant to recessive traits so that i parents pass on both copies o a gene pair# then o spring would not end up with our genes or each trait# he deduced that se0 cells contain only one parental gene o each pair! 1eople had long philosophi-ed about the observed di erences between males and emales o a species! Scientists noticed an oddball pair among the homologous chromosomes lined up at the cell e2uator during reduction division! One chromosome 345 was much bigger than the other 365! .n human beings# this mismatched pair o one 4

and one 6 chromosome is seen e0clusively in male cells! A matched pair o 4 chromosomes determined emaleness# while the emales produce only eggs and males produce sperm! Thomas ,unt Morgan and his students at Columbia 7niversity ushered in the era o modern genetics when they showed the physical basis o heredity! 8hen Mendel studied pea plants the Columbia group studied inheritance in the common ruit ly! 7nli+e Mendel they spent months searching or a ly with any uni2ue trait that could be studied! As Morgan and his cowor+ers identi ied more and more inherited traits in ruit lies# they noticed that lies o ten showed particular combinations o traits! They identi ied our such units or )lin+age groups* e2ual to the number o paired chromosomes observed under the microscope! They ound that lin+ed genes are sometimes separated during meiosis# when the homologous chromosomes e0change pieces! Distant genes recombine re2uently! Nearby genes rarely recombine and are closely lin+ed! DNA was discovered as a ma9or chemical o the nucleus at about the same time Mendel and Darwin published their wor+# however# during the early $:;;s# proteins were considered better candidates as molecules able to transmit large amounts o hereditary in ormation rom generation to generation! .n $:;<# Archibald (arrod proposed that a gene mutation causes a speci ic de ect in the biochemical pathway or elimination li2uid wastes! They tested on bread mold and reasoned that each mutation must inactivate the en-yme 3protein5 needed to synthesi-e the nutrient! Thus# one gene carries the directions or ma+ing one protein! "arlier wor+ had shown that DNA is composed o building bloc+s called nucleotides consisting o a deo0yribose sugar# a phosphate group# and o our nitrogen bases =

adenine 3A5# thymine 3T5# guanine 3(5# and cytosine 3C5! 1hosphates and sugars o ad9acent nucleotides line to orm a long polymer! Other +ey e0periments showed that the ratios o A to T and ( to C are constant in all living things! .n $:'># the race to determine how these pieces it together in a three=dimensional structure was won by ?ames 8atson and @rancis Cric+ at the Cavendish Aaboratory in Cambridge# "ngland! They showed that alternating deo0yribose and phosphate molecules orm the twisted uprights o the DNA ladder! The rungs o the ladder are ormed by complementary pairs o nitrogen bases = A always paired with T and ( always paired with C! 8atson and Cric+ proposed that one hal o the DNA ladder serves as a template or recreating the other hal during DNA replication! DNA is ound mostly in the cell nucleus# but another type o nucleic acid# BNA# is common in the cytoplasm! 8atson and Cric+ proposed that BNA must copy the DNA message in the nucleus and carry it out to the cytoplasm# where proteins are synthesi-ed! Cric+ also predicted the e0istence o an )adaptor* molecule that read the genetic code and selects the appropriate amino acids to add to a growing polypeptide chain! As it turned out# several types o BNA are involved in the utili-ation o genetic in ormation! .n the nucleus# the DNA code is )transcribed#* or copied # into a messenger BNA 3mBNA5 molecule! .n the cytoplasm# the mBNA is )translated* into amino acids! Translation is orchestrated at the ribosome itsel partly composed o BNA = with trans er BNA playing the role o adaptor! DNA was believed to be the sole medium or genetic in ormation storage! .t came as a surprise when in $:$C# it was discovered that some viruses shi t their genetic in ormation rom BNA to DNA! "ven so# these viruses ultimately ma+e proteins in the

same way as higher organisms! During ingestion# the BNA code is irst transcribed )bac+* to DNA = then to BNA to protein# according to the accepted scheme! The initial conversion o BNA to DNA is call reverse transcription# and viruses that use this mechanism are classi ied as retroviruses! "0periments in the $:&;s showed that messenger BNA has the ability to store genetic in ormation# while trans er and ribosomal BNA have the ability to translate genetic in ormation into proteins! Two decades later showed that some BNAs can even act as an en-yme to sel =edit their own genetic code! BNA has great capability as a genetic moleculeD it once had to carry on hereditary processes on its own! .t now seems certain that BNA was the irst molecule o heredity# so it evolved all the essential methods or storing and e0pressing genetic in ormation be ore DNA came onto the scene! By essentially doubling the e0isting BNA molecule# and using deo0yribose sugar instead o ribose# DNA evolved as a much more stable orm to pass genetic in ormation with accuracy! .n the $:<;s# DNA mutations were irst induced in Drosophila using 4=rays! Other types o ioni-ing radiation were also ound to produce mutations! Chemicals rom a variety o manmade and natural sources are +nown mutagens! Also# DNA replication# itsel # is not per ect and is a source o new mutations! 7p until the $:';s# most biologists thought that genes were stable units! The notion that DNA could be damaged and then repaired came rom researchers who were trying to e0plain the odd behavior o their microbes! .nvestigations o organisms rom bacteria to humans have uncovered an army o en-ymes poised to repair damage rom environmental mutagens or errors in DNA replications!

.n most cases when DNA is e0tracted rom living cells# the proteins are dissolved away! This results in long strands o na+ed DNA# which retain their genetic in ormation! So it is use ul to visuali-e a chromosome as a continuous strand o DNA! The genes o bacteria are tightly pac+ed together# however# in the $:&;s showed that large proportion o eu+aryotic DNA is composed o repeated se2uences# thus# some DNA does not encode protein! Although DNA transmits genetic in ormation through time# it basically has a passive role! 1roteins encoded by DNA actually carry out the myriad cellular reactions that constitute )li e!* Scientists have always loo+ed to mutant organisms to provide clues about protein unction! Now# speci ic mutants can be created at will by inserting an altered o non= unctioning copy o gene bac+ into a living organism# then loo+ing or changes in behavior or development! The real wor+ o understanding the human genome still lies ahead!

8OBES C.T."D: FDNA rom the Beginning = An animated primer o C' e0periments that made modern genetics!!F DNA from the Beginning - An animated primer of 75 experiments that made modern genetics.! N!p!# n!d! 8eb! <: May <;$>! Ghttp:HHwww!dna tb!orgHI!