Abstract
THE transformation of the two nucleic acids, deoxyribonucleic acid and ribonucleic acid, one into the other has been postulated by Brachet1, using developing sea urchin embryos as material for the investigation. Ribonucleic acid should be the precursor of deoxyribonucleic acid. These results have been questioned by Villee et al.2 and Abrams3, among others, who show that the amount of total nucleic acid phosphorus is not constant during development. Further, with the aid of phosphorus-32 and carbon-14 respectively, these investigators have demonstrated that the specific activity of deoxyribonucleic acid is much higher, up to fifteen times, than of ribonucleic acid. These results indicate that most of the deoxyribonucleic acid should arise from an endogenous precursor, which is not ribonucleic acid.
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References
Brachet, J., “Embryologie Chimique”, 208 (Paris, 1947).
Villee, C. A., Lowens, M., Gordon, M., Leonard, E., and Rich, A., J. Cell. Comp. Physiol., 33, 93 (1949).
Abrams, R., Exp. Cell. Res., 2, 235 (1951).
Ogur, M., and Rosen, G., Arch. Biochem., 25, 262 (1950).
Agrell, I., Nature, 164, 1039 (1949).
Zeuthen, E., Nature, 169, 245 (1952).
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AGRELL, I. Nucleic Acid Metabolism during Insect Metamorphosis. Nature 170, 543 (1952). https://doi.org/10.1038/170543a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/170543a0
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