Question

In their 1953 paper on the double-helical structure of DNA, Watson and Crick famously wrote: "It has not escaped our notice that the specific pairing we have postulated immediately suggests a possible copying mechanism for the genetic material." What did they mean? Choose one:

A. When a cell divides, each DNA helix is split between the daughter cells.
B. Each strand in a DNA double helix contains all the information needed to produce a complementary partner strand.
C. The sugar-phosphate backbone of DNA holds the helix together in a way that allows the genetic information to be copied.
D. Sexually reproducing organisms swap their DNA.

Answer 1

Watson and Crick's observation suggested that DNA replication uses each strand of the double helix as a template to produce a complementary strand, leading to the semi-conservative model of DNA replication.

Step-by-step explanation:

When James Watson and Francis Crick stated, "It has not escaped our notice that the specific pairing we have postulated immediately suggests a possible copying mechanism for the genetic material," they referred to the concept that each strand of DNA can serve as a template for creating a complementary strand. Thus, the correct answer is B: Each strand in a DNA double helix contains all the information needed to produce a complementary partner strand. This idea is central to the semi-conservative model of DNA replication, where one parental (old) strand pairs with one newly synthesized strand in each of the daughter double helices after replication. The base pairing rule, where adenine (A) pairs with thymine (T) and cytosine (C) pairs with guanine (G), ensures that each new strand is a perfect complement to each template strand, thus preserving the genetic information through generations.

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