DNA and the Evidence for Evolution

(FULL VIDEO) (22:44)

1,058 VIEWS

Record URL
Highlight

https://byui

This program shows the structure and replicating processes of DNA and the effect of genetic
mutation; demonstrates the Lederberg Experiment; and recapitulates the evidence provided
by fossils and structural and biological homologies that the process of adaptation and the
selection of adaptors rests on a wide range of genetic variability. After viewing the program,
students should have a general understanding of the general structure and functioning of
DNA and of the Lederberg Experiment and its significance, and should be familiar with the
range and types of evidence for evolution presented in the review section. (20 minutes)

Item Number: 813

Date Added: 03/05/2009

Type: Documentary Film

1988

Filed Under:
Animal Biology; General Biology; Physical Anthropology
Producer:
Granada Media

Every living cell in every living organism carries the substance which controls and dictates
how that organism will develop, and the characteristics of its offspring. The substance is
deoxyribonucleic acid, DNA. How does it function?
DNA is extremely complex. This model shows only part of the long chain of the many
thousands of atoms comprising a given DNA molecule. Here's a simplified diagrammatic
version of part of the DNA chain. It still looks pretty complicated, so let's see how it's built
up.
There are two main strands wound around each other in the form of a double helix. Each
strand is made up of phosphate groups-- here colored yellow-- and deoxyribose groups,

colored green. The two strands are linked together by basic groups which are attached to the
deoxyriboses. The bases on one strand are joined to those on the other by hydrogen bonds.
Four different bases are involved, cytosine, which can only link with guanine, and thymine,
which can only link with adenine. The bases can only pair in this way, cytosine with guanine,
and thymine with adenine. You can see that here. C always linked with G, A with T.
So DNA consists of long chain molecules in which two spiraling strands are linked by pairs
of bases in the way we've just shown. The bases may occur in different orders in different
DNA molecules. Now, an important feature of DNA is that it can replicate itself, make copies
of itself.
This is how does it. The two strands come apart. Each separate strand now builds up a new
strand alongside. The new strand is built up from separate nucleotides, each a combination of
a phosphate group and a deoxyribose group, to which one of the four bases is attached. The
base finds its complementary base on the DNA strand.
Here, the base is thymine, which links up with adenine. Here, cytosine links up with guanine.
And so on, until a DNA double helix has been formed once more. The same thing happens to
the other strand from the original DNA molecule, so that now we have two DNA molecules.
This is how a given DNA molecule can make any number of copies of itself.
How does DNA carry genetic information so that a particular plant or animal develops in the
way it does? Slightly simplified, it works like this. The spiral unzips again. And this time, a
slightly different strand builds up alongside the DNA strand.
This is ribonucleic acid-- RNA-- in a form called messenger RNA. It's like DNA, except that
the green deoxyribose groups are replaced by ribose groups, here colored orange. And at the
same time, the base, thymine, present in DNA, is replaced by uracil, here colored purple. The
sequence of bases along the RNA strand matches the sequence of bases along the DNA.
This messenger RNA-- and remember, this is only a short portion of a very long chain-- now
moves out from the cell nucleus, where the DNA is, to the ribosomes in the cell. Here,
proteins are built up.
This is how the process works. Molecules of transfer RNA, each with groups of three of the
four bases, attach themselves. Each carries a particular amino acid, depending on the
sequence of the three bases. This along with uracil, adenine, and cytosine, carries an amino
acid represented by the gray rectangle. It finds this place by base pairing on the chain of
messenger RNA.
A chain of amino acids is built up, each amino acid corresponding to a particular triplet of
bases, or anticodon, on the transfer RNA, which fit the corresponding triplet, or codon, on the
messenger RNA. The genetic code is a triplet code, controlling which amino acid comes at
each point in the chain.
The sequence of amino acids in the chain has been determined by the sequence of bases in
the original DNA of the cell nucleus. The amino acid chain now peels off from the RNA. it's
a polypeptide, part of a much longer molecule, which is a protein. What particular protein it is
has been determined by the sequences of bases in the original DNA.

A gene is any portion of the DNA chain which affects a significant part of the primary
sequence of a particular protein. Genes regulate the synthesis of proteins, and the proteins,
structural and enzymatic, determine the characteristics of any living organism. So DNA,
which controls protein production, therefore determines the characteristics of the plant or
animal in which it's present.
Now, any change in the DNA carried by an organism will mean that a gene has changed. As a
result, a different protein will be produced on the new code carried by that gene. Suppose, for
example, that due to chance exposure to radiation, or some mutagenic chemical agent, a
thymine group is lost. and replaced by cytosine. This is the messenger RNA chain, which the
DNA programed before the change. But it's no longer fits because cytosine doesn't link with
adenine.
The new messenger RNA will have no adenine, but guanine in this position. In the cell
ribosomes, this altered messenger RNA will now build up a slightly different protein. The
transfer RNA with the anticodon, guanine, uracil, and adenine-- carrying an amino acid
represented by the pink rectangle-- no longer fits at this point because uracil will not link with
guanine.
A different unit of transfer RNA with the anticodon, guanine, cytosine, adenine, does fit. But
of course, it carries a different amino acid, the green rectangle. The polypeptide now carries a
new amino acid at one point. We have, in fact, a changed primary sequence in the protein.
A mutation, a change in the DNA, in the gene-- and certain changes cause much more drastic
effects than the example we've taken-- leads to a change in the protein the gene produces, and
a change, useful, harmful, or maybe neutral, in the organism's characteristics. Unpredictable
changes in DNA are important contributors to the genetic variability we find in all living
things. Genetic variability, then, can be caused by unpredictable mutations-- changes in
genes-- which are inherited by future generations.
The giraffe didn't get its long neck stretching through stretching high for young foliage, and
passing this on as an acquired characteristic. Natural selection of individuals which happen to
have necks at least slightly longer caused this particular species to evolve. In the same way,
the copper-tolerant grasses in another of these films where the progeny of individual plants
which happened to possess copper tolerance before copper salts ever polluted the soil. They
were selected by the polluted environment.
An important experiment, first carried out by the Lederbergs, demonstrates how we can
obtain a population of living organisms specially adapted to a certain environment which
can't have acquired its adaptation through exposure to that environment. At Newcastle
University Department of Genetics, a version of this experiment.
The flask contains a nutrient broth in which the bacterium, Escherichia coli, is growing. A
little the broth is run onto a nutrient agar in this dish. The spreader is flamed to destroy any
unwanted bacteria contaminating it. As with all microbiological procedures, strict precautions
must be taken.
So this is a normal population of Escherichia coli on a nutrient gel. It's incubated for 24 hours
at 37 degrees centigrade. Now for the replica plating technique. This is the Lederberg's
replica plating experiment. A piece of sterile velvet is stretched tight. And the gel carrying the

Escherichia coli colonies is pressed firmly down onto it, so that some bacteria get transferred
to the velvet.
Now, these two dishes contain nutrient agar gel to which an antibiotic, streptomycin, has been
added. escherichia coli should be destroyed by streptomycin, so shouldn't grow on these gels.
Each is pressed in turn on to the velvet, which carries traces of the escherichia coli colonies
grown on the normal agar. These plates with the antibiotic present are now incubated.
Let's look at the result. The two plates containing antibiotic are at the bottom. The original
plate, without antibiotic, is at the top. The original master plate has many hundreds of
colonies of escherichia coli.
The two antibiotic plates each show just a few colonies. These are in identical positions on
the two plates, which is why we have two, to show the result's repeatable. Each of these
colonies consists of escherichia coli, which must be resistant to the streptomycin, and must
have grown from individuals in the same area of the master plate which happened to be
streptomycin resistant.
So here, for example, on the master plate-- which contains no antibiotic, remember-- there
must be some resistant bacilli. We check that the two replica plates are indeed identical, as
they should be. The vertical lines serve as guidelines. Then we compared the master plate,
and mark on it one of the positions from which the replica plates picked up some of the
streptomycin-resistant escherichia coli.
A ring is punched around the nutrient gel in the marked area. Within the circle, at least some
escherichia coli must be streptomycin-resistant. A spatula is dipped in alcohol and flamed. It
must itself be sterile. And the disk is removed. It's placed in a flask of nutrient broth.
In the incubator, the escherichia coli, including resistant individuals, will multiply. Here's the
culture. It's diluted 10 times so that the bacilli are thinned out a little. Then, again taking all
sterile precautions, it's spread on a fresh plate of normal nutrient agar.
This new master plate is then incubated. Once again, using a piece of sterile velvet, two
replicate plates are made from this master plate. The replica plates contain, as before, nutrient
gel plus streptomycin. Only resistant escherichia coli transferred from the master plate will
grow on these two replica plates.
The result. Master plate at the top, replica plates containing antibiotic below. We can see there
are more colonies of resistant escherichia coli than there were the first time we did this, as we
should expect, since we deliberately tried to select resistant bacteria from a portion of the
original master plate. Once again, the replica plates are used to find an area on the master
plate where there are streptomycin-resistant bacteria. Gel is taken from this area, the culture
diluted again 10 times, and the whole procedure repeated.
From our third master plate-- again, at the top-- we get two replica plates containing an even
larger number of streptomycin-resistant colonies. After six stages, we reach this. The master
plate at the top precisely matches the two replica plates at the bottom. Bacteria picked up on
the velvet from each of the colonies at the top have grown successfully on the replica plates
in the presence of streptomycin. All the escherichia coli on the master plate must be
streptomycin-resistant.

We've achieved a completely antibiotic-resistant population although the bacteria on this top
plate have never been exposed to the streptomycin. The resistance cannot have been acquired,
therefore, by exposure to the antibiotic. A resistant population has come about by a process of
selection of already resistant individuals.
We can't prove that the theory of evolution is true. But it remains the most satisfactory
interpretation we have of the kinds of evidence which we've looked at in these films. We
started with the evidence from the past, the fossil record. Although there are many gaps,
fossils give us a broad picture of how plants and animals developed throughout the thousands
of millions of years of the earth's history. And some fossil sequences provide a quite detailed
record of how certain living things have evolved through time.
The homologies shown by living things provide evidence of a different kind. Again, we
illustrated only some. The structural homologies between the forelimbs of very different
animals, and between insect appendages. Some behavioral homologies amongst, for example,
waterfowl. And most recently investigated, the remarkable biochemical homologies revealed
by the study of proteins. These homologies, and many others, suggest common ancestries for
different groups of living things, an essential feature of the evolutionary theory.
We looked at ways in which isolation has acted upon small founder colonies, like the rodents
on the [INAUDIBLE] Shetlands, and saw how these reveal evolution change going on today.
And we looked at other examples of selection and action using experimental studies of
banded snails, of metal-tolerant grasses-- which provide a very vivid illustration of how our
environment selects particular varieties-- and of the all-important cereal crops, wheat and
barley. These were just some examples of natural and artificial selection which help us to
understand how evolution works.
Finally, we looked at the way in which vital genetic information is encoded by DNA in the
cells of all living things, whether dandelions, people, or fruit flies. We now know that
changes in DNA produce the unpredictable inherited variations on which selection can then
act. Selection, acting on an enormous range of genetic variability, has led to the tremendous
variety of living things on earth today, including ourselves.
This view of the mechanism of evolution provides the best explanation we have of the
fascinating variety of life in the world around us, in the past, present, and as far as we can
know, in the future.