Question

This famous scientist worked with a mould called Neurospora crassa and came to the conclusion that the characteristics function of the gene was to supervise the formation of a particular enzyme. Who was he?

• A. John Joseph Bittner
• B. William Clouser Boyd
• C. George Wells Beadle
• D. Wended Meredith Stanley

Answer 1

The correct option is C George Wells Beadle

Neurospora crassa is a type of red bread mold of the phylum Ascomycota. N. crassa is used as a model organism because it is easy to grow and has a haploid life cycle that makes genetic analysis simple since recessive traits will show up in the offspring. Analysis of genetic recombination is facilitated by the ordered arrangement of the products of meiosis in Neurospora ascospores. Its entire genome of seven chromosomes has been sequenced. Neurospora was used by Edward Tatum and George Wells Beadle in their experiments for which they won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1958. Beadle and Tatum exposed N. crassa to x-rays, causing mutations. They then observed failures in metabolic pathways caused by errors in specific enzymes. This led them to propose the "one gene, one enzyme" hypothesis that specific genes code for specific proteins.

So the correct option is 'George Wells Beadle'.