Density matters: The semiconservative replication of DNA
Year: 2004
Type: article
Abstract: The semiconservative mode of DNA replication was originally documented through the classic density labeling experiments of Matthew Meselson and Franklin W. Stahl, as communicated to PNAS by Max Delbruck in May 1958. The ultimate value of their novel approach has extended far beyond the initial implications from that elegant study, through more than four decades of research on DNA replication, recombination, and repair. I provide here a short historical commentary and then an account of some developments in the field of DNA replication, which closely followed the Meselson-Stahl experiment. These developments include the application of density labeling to discover the repair replication of damaged DNA, a "nonconservative" mode of synthesis in which faulty sections of DNA are replaced.
Author: Philip C. Hanawalt
Institution: Stanford University
Language: English
Subfield: History and Philosophy of Science
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2080046626