Historical Aspects of nucleic acids

• Frederick meischer (1868) first identified phosphate rich substances in hospital bandages puss cells. He had considered phosphate rich substances are called “Nuclein”.
• Alberecht Kossel (Nobel prize, 1910) differentiated RNA and DNA in 1882.
• In 1906, Kossel described the 4 bases in nucleic acids.
• The term “Nucleic acid” was first coined by the scientist “Altmann”. The name given based on two characters one is based on the location (Nucleous-“Nucleic”) and nature (Acidic nature-“Acid”). The literal meaning is “the acidic phosphate rich substances present in Nucleous”, so the name was given as NUCLEIC ACID.
• In 1931, Barbara McClintock showed the rearrangement of genes or mobile genes in chromosomes in corn (Nobel prize, 1983).
• X-ray crystallographic studies on DNA by Maurice wilkins (Nobel prize, 1962) showed he details of structure of DNA.
• Rosalind Franklin worked out the helical structure of DNA.
• James Watson and Francis Crick in 1953 deduced the double helical structure of DNA (Nobel prize 1962).

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