Polynucleotide phosphorylase and in vitro RNA synthesis
Polinucleótido fosforilasa y síntesis de ARN in vitro
- Date
- 1955 · confidence high
- Place
- New York University, New York, United States
- Credited to
- Severo Ochoa and Marianne Grunberg-Manago
- Field
- Life & health
What was discovered
Severo Ochoa and Marianne Grunberg-Manago discovered a bacterial enzyme able to join nucleotides to form RNA without a DNA template, and used it to obtain synthetic RNA in vitro. That RNA, such as poly-U, allowed Nirenberg and Matthaei in 1961 to decipher the first codon of the genetic code.
The enzyme degrades RNA in the cell; its in vitro synthesis is an artefact of the experimental conditions, and it was mistakenly thought to be the RNA polymerase. Grunberg-Manago did not share the 1959 Nobel Prize that Ochoa received, a debated case of credit allocation.
What it led to
- poly-U and the deciphering of the first codon (Nirenberg and Matthaei, 1961)
- the 1959 Nobel Prize in Medicine shared by Ochoa and Kornberg
- synthetic RNA for the study of the genetic code