Question

Select all that apply. In Hershey and Chase's famous experiment, which of the following should they have observed if protein was the genetic material? Ie the part of the cell that stored the instructional code for building more viruses.

	1.	radioactivity in the capsid when they labeled the viruses with 35S (radioactive sulfur).
	2.	radioactive sulfur in the supernatant (what the textbook calls the solution) above the pellet.
	3.	radioactive sulfur in the pellet at the base of the test tube after centrifugation.
	4.	radioactive DNA in the supernatant (ie the solution above the pellet) when they labeled the viruses with 32P).

Answer 1

So, from this above experiment we can show that –

1. Radioactivity in the capsid when they labeled the viruses with ³⁵S (radioactive sulfur).

Because radioactive sulfur-35 was used to label the protein sections of the T2 phage that means in their capsid, because sulfur is contained in amino acids but not DNA.

2. Radioactive sulfur in the supernatant (what the textbook calls the solution) above the pellet.

In the result of this experiment, we show that most radioactive sulphur found in the supernatant. Because radioactive protein could not get transferred to the bacteria.

Thus, the correct options are -1 & 2.