The Structure of Nucleic Acids and Their Role in Protein Synthesis

This is the fourteenth of a series of Biochemical Society Symposia published annually. There has been an unfortunate delay in publication since the Symposium was held on February 18, 1956 and the book was not published until May 22, 1957. A brief historical introduction to the morning session by N. W. Pirie touches on a variety of subjects from the unfounded assumptions made in nucleic acid research to the relationship between terminology and biological entity. R. Markham gives a very good and concise review of the structure of nucleic acids, and indicates the improbability of chain branching in RNA although more flexible views on this topic have also been published. M. H. F. Wilkins presents experimental data concerning the structure of DNA which are in accord with the Watson and Crick model, and discusses in an interesting manner the types of structural combinations of DNA with protamine and histone. The afternoon session is introduced by J. N. Davidson who gives an excellent thumbnail sketch of the cytological aspects of the interrelationship of nucleic acids and protein synthesis. He mentions the increasing volume of evidence that RNA is involved in protein synthesis while DNA may be involved in the synthesis of certain specific proteins. B. A. Askonas, J. L. Simkin, and T. S. Work present a survey of the literature bearing on the interrelationship between nucleic acid and protein synthesis. They point out the difficulties inherent in accepting nucleic acids as templates in the synthesis of proteins and suggest that patternization could be controlled through the influence of small nucleotides on reaction rates. E. F. Gale reviews the literature on amino acid incorporation by subcellular preparations from different sources with particular emphasis on the work from his laboratory. Gale has published a similar but more extensive review in the Harvey Lectures of 1956. K. Burton presents a very comprehensive review of the topic in relation to bacteriophage multiplication. In this relatively simple biological system, in terms of participating components, the connection between DNA and protein synthesis can be shown more clearly. This book brings to the foreground the facts as well as the hypotheses current in this field. Although there is appreciable evidence for a relationship between nucleic acids and protein synthesis, it may be that this does not present a cause-effect relationship but rather a co-occurrence of biological phenomena which are not directly related. For instance, it appears to be a fact that bacteria require a complete amino acid mixture for bacteriophage-DNA synthesis, but the interpretation, rather than being