Question

Who discovered nucleic acid? What was it called then?

Answer 1

The hereditary information carrying macromolecules present in the cells of the living organisms is called the nucleic acid. It is considered as the very basis element of life and contains the coded information that is transferred from one generation to the other. RNA and DNA are the two important types of nucleic acids.

Complete answer:
Nucleic acids are described as the biopolymers or large biomolecules and are of two types which are the DNA and the RNA. The nucleic acids are composed of nucleotides which are the monomers that are made up of three components namely, 5-carbon sugar, a phosphate group and a nitrogenous base.
Nucleic acid was discovered by J. Friedrich Miescher, who was a Swiss physician and biologist. He isolated the nucleic acid which was called as nuclein by him from the nuclei of the white blood cells. In the year 1869, he isolated the substance and named it nuclein. The lymphocytes or the pus cells were used by Miescher to isolate the nuclein from them. The lymphocytes were difficult to obtain in sufficient numbers to study, so he obtained bandages with pus from the nearby hospitals and extracted the lymphocytes from them.
Further to isolate the lymphocytes, he subjected the obtained pus to different salt solutions. The cells were then filtered and allowed to settle down on the base of the container. He then isolated the nuclei from the cytoplasm and subjected the purified nuclei to an alkaline extraction. This process was followed by acidification, and it resulted in the formation of precipitate. This resultant precipitate was called nuclein by Miescher. He named the substance nuclein as it was extracted from the nucleus.
He further found that the nuclein contained phosphorus and nitrogen but no sulphur was present. He was also of the opinion that nucleic acids are involved in the heredity process in the living organism and there must be some factors which produced variations.

Note: J. Friedrich Miescher by his experiments on the lymphocytes extracted nuclei from the cytoplasm and named it as nuclein. He called the nucleic acid as nuclein as they were isolated from the nuclei of the cell. The discovery of the nuclein or nucleic acid played a significant role in the identification of nucleic acids as carriers of inheritance.