Page 243 - The Manga Guide to Biochemistry

However, it is an undeniable fact that the accumulation of knowledge from that kind of
dirty work built the foundation of molecular biology in the first place. Although many young
molecular biologists have never once used flesh-and-blood, organic materials other than
E. coli, cell cultures, or experimental animals, biochemistry and molecular biology have long
been bound together and remain so even today. This fact should never be forgotten.

Early Biochemistry and Molecular Biology

In 1897, German biochemist Eduard Buchner made the revolutionary discovery that fer-
mentation occurred in an extract created from yeast cells, which contained yeast protein but
no living yeast cells.

Prior to that, people believed that the chemical reaction called fermentation, which
is characteristic of living organisms, could not happen without the presence of living cells.
However, this idea was utterly obliterated by Buchner’s discovery.

Because of this, the theory of vitalism, in which the phenomena of life occur only
because of a characteristic force (spirit or life energy) of living organisms, practically dis­
appeared, and the foundation was built for research on chemical reactions occurring in
living organisms in test tubes. In other words, biochemistry was born.

Since Buchner found that an actual living organism need not be present, it would not
be an exaggeration to say that this was the discovery that paved the way for the arrival of
molecular biology.

As a clearer understanding of the chemistry of life developed, it became apparent that
certain mechanisms common in all living organisms form the basic foundation of life. Some
of these mechanisms, for example, are that DNA is used as the genetic language, that the
basic theory (central dogma) behind the reading of genes to create proteins is consistent,
and that the same proteins often do the same kinds of work.

Because these mechanisms are universal among living organisms, it was important to
develop methodologies for studying DNA, which serves as the blueprint for proteins, and for
elucidating the function of proteins.

Development of recombinant DNA Techniques

In 1972, American molecular biologist Paul Berg performed the first successful recombinant
DNA experiment in the world by artificially manipulating DNA in a test tube to create a DNA
sequence that did not exist in the natural world.

A method for easily decoding the base sequences of DNA was developed by English
biochemist Frederick Sanger in 1977, and a method for copying (or amplifying) DNA was
developed by American molecular biologist Kary Mullis in 1985. After these discoveries,
recombinant DNA experimental techniques advanced rapidly.

Molecular Biology and the Biochemistry of Nucleic Acids 229