beadle and tatum worked on neurospora
Answers
Key points:
.The one gene, one enzyme hypothesis is the idea that each gene encodes a single enzyme. Today, we know that this idea is generally (but not exactly) correct.
.Sir Archibald Garrod, a British medical doctor, was the first to suggest that genes were connected to enzymes.
.Beadle and Tatum confirmed Garrod's hypothesis using genetic and biochemical studies of the bread mold Neurospora.
.Beadle and Tatum identified bread mold mutants that were unable to make specific amino acids. In each one, a mutation had "broken" an enzyme needed to build a certain amino acid.Introduction
introduction
Today, we know that a typical gene provides instructions for building a protein, which in turn determines the observable features of an organism. For instance, we now know that Gregor Mendel's flower color gene specifies a protein that helps make pigment molecules, giving flowers a purple color when it works correctly.
Mendel, however, did not know that genes (which he called "heritable factors") specified proteins and other functional molecules. In fact, he didn't even speculate about how genes affected the observable features of living organisms. Who, then, first made the connection between genes and proteins?
Garrod’s "inborn errors of metabolismBeadle and Tatum: Connecting genes to enzymes
Regrettably, Garrod's ideas went largely unnoticed in his own time. In fact, it was only after two other researchers, George Beadle and Edward Tatum, carried out a series of groundbreaking experiments in the 1940s that Garrod's work was rediscovered and appreciated.^4
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Beadle and Tatum worked with a simple organism: common bread mold, or Neurospora crassa. Using Neurospora, they were able to show a clear connection between genes and metabolic enzymes.