Question

What is the explanation of why avery, macleod, and mccarty's in vitro transformation experiment showed that dna, but not rna or protein, is the hereditary molecule?

Answer 1

The Griffith's experiment, the Avery-MacLeod-McCarty experiment, and the  Hershey–Chase experiments were the set of experiments that established DNA as the key hereditary molecule. The Avery-MacLeod-McCarty experiment was an extension to the Griffith's experiment. The heat killed virulent S strain cells of the Griffith's experiment were lysed to form a supernatant containing a mix of RNA, DNA, proteins and lipids from the cell. The supernatent was equally divided into 3 parts after the removal of the lipids. The 3 parts were respectively treated with an RNAase to degrade the RNA, DNAase to degrade the DNA and proteinase to degrade the proteins. The treated supernatant was then added into the culture containing the non-virulent R cells. In case of the supernatant treated with the DNAse, no transformation of R cells into S cells occurred. The transformation of R cells to S cells occurred in the proteinase and the RNAse cases. This indicated that DNA was the hereditary molecule and not protein or RNA.