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The Replication Of DNA In Escherichia Coli

Decent Essays

Introduction
Today’s issue of Biology: Meselson and Stahl (Vol 4, 1958) includes a groundbreaking development into further understanding of DNA Replication. On pages 671 – 682 is an article titled “The Replication of DNA in Escherichia Coli”. Meselson and Stahl conducted an experiment to understand how DNA self-replicates by the use of Bacterial transformation to clone parental DNA.

In the article, Meselson and Stahl investigate the distribution between the parental and daughter DNA molecules. This is achieved by the use of Radio Isotopic labelling. Uniform Isotopic N15 was grown in E.coli consisting of N14 medium to observe the distribution of N15 DNA macromolecules. Within the article, the authors also discuss the problems they faced during the investigation and how significant Watsons and Cricks Double helix suggests how DNA self-replicates.

What is DNA?
The discovery of the structure of DNA has always been associated with Watson and Crick. Their double helix structure, which they developed in 1983, has been used as a model to understand how DNA self-replicates (Karp, 2009). The structure of DNA is made up of covalent bonds between 4 unique nucleotide bases. These bases bind together via complementary base pairing, therefore allowing Adenine to only bind with Thymine, and Cytosine with Guanine (Penn State, Ebery College of Science, 2016). The use of covalent bonds makes the structure strongly bound like a zipper. However, just like a zipper, it can easily open up

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