Question

beadle and tatum and other researchers hypothesized that each mutant strain was blocked at blank______ in the consecutive series of reactions that lead to arginine synthesis.

Answer 1

Beadle and Tatum's experiments with arginine mutants led to the hypothesis that each mutant strain was blocked at a different step in the arginine biosynthesis pathway, contributing to the one gene-one enzyme hypothesis.

Step-by-step explanation:

Beadle and Tatum's One Gene-One Enzyme Hypothesis

Beadle and Tatum hypothesized that each mutant strain was blocked at a different step in the consecutive series of reactions that lead to arginine synthesis. Their groundbreaking work involved the discovery of three classes of arginine mutants, each unable to grow without supplementation of specific intermediates in the arginine biosynthesis pathway. This finding suggested that each mutant was defective in a different gene, with each gene encoding a different enzyme required for the production of arginine. This observation was a cornerstone for the one gene-one enzyme hypothesis, indicating that a mutation in a single gene affects a specific step in a biochemical pathway because it encodes a specific enzyme.