Quote
It now seems certain that the amino acid sequence of any protein is determined by the sequence of bases in some region of a particular nucleic acid molecule. Twenty different kinds of amino acid are commonly found in protein, and four main kinds of base occur in nucleic acid. The genetic code describes the way in which a sequence of twenty or more things is determined by a sequence of four things of a different type.
It is hardly necessary to stress the biological importance of the problem. It seems likely that most if not all the genetic information in any organism is carried by nucleic acid - usually by DNA, although certain small
viruses use RNA as their genetic material. It is probable that much of this information is used to determine the amino acid sequence of the proteins of that organism. (Whether the genetic information has any other major function we do not yet know.) This idea is expressed by the classic slogan of Beadle: "one gene - one enzyme", or in the more sophisticated but cumbersome terminology of today: "one cistron - one polypeptide chain".
Unquote from Francis Crick, Nobel Prize Physiology 1962
It now seems certain that the amino acid sequence of any protein is determined by the sequence of bases in some region of a particular nucleic acid molecule. Twenty different kinds of amino acid are commonly found in protein, and four main kinds of base occur in nucleic acid. The genetic code describes the way in which a sequence of twenty or more things is determined by a sequence of four things of a different type.
It is hardly necessary to stress the biological importance of the problem. It seems likely that most if not all the genetic information in any organism is carried by nucleic acid - usually by DNA, although certain small
viruses use RNA as their genetic material. It is probable that much of this information is used to determine the amino acid sequence of the proteins of that organism. (Whether the genetic information has any other major function we do not yet know.) This idea is expressed by the classic slogan of Beadle: "one gene - one enzyme", or in the more sophisticated but cumbersome terminology of today: "one cistron - one polypeptide chain".
Unquote from Francis Crick, Nobel Prize Physiology 1962