Question

What exactly is the Hershey-Chase experiment?

Answer 1

These were experiments used to make sure that DNA was a genetic material that was discovered by a swiss scientist during his research on white blood cells

Answer 2

Hope that answered your question

Answer 3

easy there, tiger...reading the first sentence in a wikipedia article doesn't make you an expert :)

in the 50s of the past century, we didn't exactly KNOW where genetic information was stored. some people thought of proteins as the genetic information carrier, while others believed in DNA as the carrier molecule.

to sort out this matter, a genious experiment was conducted. they used a virus that injects its DNA (as we now know - they did not know that!) into bacteria cells, leaving the viral protein shell (again - they didn't know!) on the outside of the bacterium. they then put that bacteria into a mixer which removed the viral shell from the bacteria, but did not destroy the bacteria.

they already knew some things about DNA and proteins: the elements they are built of. DNA contains phosphrous (P) and no sulfur (S), while proteins contain sulfur and no phosphorous.

so they put the viruses in two groups. one was marked with radioactive P (should go into the DNA), the other was marked with radioactive S (should go into proteins). then, they infected bacteria with the radioactive viruses, put them in the mixer to remove the 'outside rubbish' protein, washed them thoroughly and measured radioactivity.

and here's what they saw: in bacteria infected with radioactive-S-viruses, no radioactivity was measured. BUT: bacteria infected with radioactive-P-viruses were radioactive! they concluded that genetic information was given along via DNA, putting and end to the raging discussion.

THE END