Abstract
After the discovery and final recognition of the genetic function of DNA (Avery, MacLeod, and McCarty, 1944; Hershey and Chase, 1952; Watson and Crick, 1953a,b), it rapidly became clear that DNA itself does not serve as a direct template for protein synthesis. In addition, a number of early observations suggested that ribonucleic acid was closely connected to cellular protein synthesis (Caspersson, Landström-Hydea, and Aquilonius, 1941; Brachet, 1941–1942). These ideas were developed and resulted in the concept that RNA is the intermediate responsible for the transfer of genetic information from DNA to proteins; in particular, it has been suggested that RNA serves as a template upon which amino acid residues are polymerized (DNA → RNA → protein) (Crick, 1959).
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© 1999 Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, New York
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Spirin, A.S. (1999). Messenger RNA and the Genetic Code. In: Ribosomes. Cellular Organelles. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-7817-8_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-7817-8_2
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