In the experiments, Hershey and Chase showed that when bacteriophages, which are composed of DNA and protein, infect bacteria, their DNA enters the host bacterial cell, but most of their protein does not. Hershey and Chase and subsequent discoveries all served to prove that DNA is the hereditary material.
The Hershey–Chase experiment was carried out with a virus, called bacteriophage T2, that infects bacteria. Bacteriophage T2 consists of little more than a DNA core packed inside a protein coat. Thus, the virus is made of the two materials that were, at the time, the leading candidates for the genetic material.
