Synthetic Polynucleotides and the Amino Acid Code

Abstract

Nucleic acids contain the information required for protein synthesis. Protein synthesis is the linking of the twenty kinds of amino acids into a linear sequence as directed by the linear sequence of the four kinds of nucleotides in the nucleic acid. The list of amino acids with the different nucleotide sequences which specify each is the amino acid code. Two years ago at the Cold Spring Harbor Symposium, Brenner (1961) presented a paper (see also Brenner et al., 1961) that was fundamental to the experimental elucidation of the code. They showed that in vivo ribosomes are unspecific structures which synthesize, at a given time, the protein dictated by the messenger RNA they happen to contain. Old ribosomes can attach new messenger which has encoded the information for new protein. This experiment confirmed the messenger RNA concept of Jacob and Monod (1961).