Question

1. What are nucleic acids? What is the historic origin of this name?

Answer 1

DNA and RNA, the nucleic acids, are the molecules responsible for the hereditary information that commands the protein synthesis in living beings. The name “nucleic” derives from the fact that they were discovered (by the Swiss biochemist Friedrich Miescher, in 1869) within the cell nucleus. In that time it was not known that those substances contained the hereditary information.