Letter from Francis Crick to Robert W. Holley
- Contributor(s):
- The Wellcome Library for the History and Understanding of Medicine. Francis Harry Compton Crick Papers Crick, Francis, 1916-2004 Holley, Robert W.
- Publication:
- Produced: 30 November 1966
- Language(s):
- English
- Format:
- Text
- Subject(s):
- Genetic Code
- Genre(s):
- Archival Materials Letters (correspondence)
- Abstract:
- Crick here reported on ongoing genetic work in his and Sydney Brenner's laboratory, work designed to complete the elucidation of the genetic code by identifying the codons in the transfer RNA for each amino acid (here, methionine) that bind to the complementary codon on the messenger RNA template, and by identifying those so-called nonsense triplets that do not code for any amino acid. Hydroxylamine is a chemical that is structurally analogous to the DNA bases, and when supplied in the food of the microorganisms used in genetic experiments (the research discussed by Crick focused on the much-studied rII gene of the bacteriophage T4), could be substituted for the regular base during gene replication, producing a mutation in the gene.. Holley, who was to win a share of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1968, obtained the first sequence of a nucleic acid, the seventy-seven nucleotide-long strand of alanine tRNA of yeast.
- Copyright:
- This item may be under copyright protection; contact the copyright owner for permission before re-use.
- Extent:
- 2 pages
- NLM Unique ID:
- 101584582X35 (See in Profiles in Science)
- Profiles in Science ID:
- SCBBDG
- Permanent Link:
- http://resource.nlm.nih.gov/101584582X35
- Archival Collection:
- The Francis Crick Papers (Profiles in Science)