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  • (a) Describe the experiment conducted by F. Griffith in 1928 with Streptococcus pneumoniae and write the conclusions he arrived at. (b) State the contribution of Avey, MacLeod and McCarty in providing biochemical nature to results as

(a) Describe the experiment conducted by F. Griffith in 1928 with Streptococcus pneumoniae and write the conclusions he arrived at.

(b) State the contribution of Avey, MacLeod and McCarty in providing biochemical nature to results as obtained by Griffith.

 

 

 

 
 
 
 
 

Answers (1)

a) When Streptococcus pneumoniae (pneumococcus) bacteria are grown on a culture plate, some produce smooth shiny colonies (S) while others produce rough colonies (R). This is because the S strain bacteria have a mucous (polysaccharide) coat, while R strain does not. Mice infected with the S strain (virulent) die from pneumonia infection but mice infected with the R strain do not develop pneumonia.

Griffith was able to kill bacteria by heating them. He observed that heat-killed S strain bacteria injected into mice did not kill them. When he injected a mixture of heat-killed S and live R bacteria, the mice died.

Moreover, he recovered living S bacteria from the dead mice. He concluded that the R strain bacteria had somehow been transformed by the heat-killed S strain bacteria. Some ‘transforming principle’, transferred from the heat-killed S strain, had enabled the R strain to synthesize a smooth polysaccharide coat and become virulent. This must be due to the transfer of the genetic material. However, the biochemical nature of genetic material was not defined from his experiments.

b) Oswald Avery, Colin MacLeod and Maclyn McCarty worked to determine the biochemical nature of ‘transforming principle’ in Griffith's experiment. They purified biochemicals (proteins, DNA, RNA, etc.) from the heat-killed S cells to see which ones could transform live R cells into S cells. They discovered that DNA alone from S bacteria caused R bacteria to become transformed.

They also discovered that protein-digesting enzymes (proteases) and RNA-digesting enzymes (RNases) did not affect transformation, so the transforming substance was not a protein or RNA. Digestion with DNase did inhibit transformation, suggesting that the DNA caused the transformation. They concluded that DNA is the hereditary material.

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Priyanka Kumari

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