Final answer:
Beadle and Tatum used Neurospora crassa to show that enzymes required for methionine biosynthesis are genetically controlled, leading to the one gene-one enzyme hypothesis.
Step-by-step explanation:
Beadle and Tatum designed experiments to test how enzymes required for the biosynthesis of methionine are controlled by genes.
Their pioneering work with the red bread mold, Neurospora crassa, involved irradiating mold spores to induce mutations and studying their growth on different media.
They isolated mutants that required specific supplements to grow, leading to the groundbreaking one gene-one enzyme hypothesis, which proposed that each gene encodes a specific enzyme involved in metabolic pathways such as the biosynthesis of amino acids like arginine and methionine.