Page 218 - The Manga Guide to Biochemistry
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The Discovery of Nuclein
The Swiss biochemist Friedrich Miescher (1844–1895)
successfully isolated a new substance from a sample
of white blood cells. He extracted the cells from used
bandages that he received from a nearby hospital.
White blood cells adhering to used bandages? Ugh,
so we must be talking about...
That’s right! We're talking about pus!
Friedrich Miescher
He studied pus?! Gross! I guess biochemistry isn’t all glamour and diets...
To extract white blood cells, Miescher processed the pus by adding an enzyme
called protease, which breaks down protein, and then he used a method called
ether extraction to remove the lipids.
protein Lipid
Pus Nuclein
White Nucleus
Blood
cell
The substance that was obtained from the white blood cells showed strong acidity.
Miescher named it nuclein since it was found inside the nucleus of the white blood
cells. Miescher also succeeded in extracting nuclein from salmon sperm. Nuclein later
became known as nucleic acid, and in the first half of the 20th century, scientists
determined that there two types of nucleic acid: DNA and RNA.
204 Chapter 5
