Biochemical Foundations of Human Vital Activity - Volkov, N. I., & Nesen, E. N. 2000

Biochemical Foundations of Human Vital Activity
Biochemistry of Nucleic Acids

Living organisms have The ability to reproduce their own kind. The transmission of hereditary information from generation to generation is associated with Nucleic Acids.

The existence of nucleic acids has been known for over a century, yet it is only in recent decades that the immense role of these compounds has been fully understood. They were first isolated from Cell nuclei by the Swiss physician F. Miescher in 1868 and named nuclein (from the Latin Nucleus, meaning kernel or core). It was later established that nuclein is also present in Mitochondria, Ribosomes, and the Cytoplasm. Miescher determined that nuclein contains carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and phosphorus atoms. It was not until 1889 that R. Altmann demonstrated that nuclein possesses acidic properties and proposed calling these compounds nucleic acids.

Nucleic acids possess a more complex Structure than Proteins. They are among the largest molecules known to science, with molecular weights reaching tens or hundreds of millions. It is precisely within these macromolecules that the information required by The Cell to synthesize all proteins is stored, since the Similarities and differences among organisms are ultimately determined by their protein Complement. Consequently, nucleic acids constitute the genetic material of living Cells, transmitted from generation to generation during reproduction, thereby enabling progeny to synthesize the same proteins as their ancestors.

Unraveling the Structure of Nucleic Acids ushered in a new era in biology by making it possible to understand how living cells—and consequently entire organisms—accurately replicate themselves and how they encode the information necessary to regulate their vital activities.