Does the design of the Hershey–Chase experiment distinguish between DNA and RNA as the molecule serving as the genetic material? Why or why not?

Video transcript

Welcome back. Here's the next question. Which of the following radioactive elements was used by Hershey and Chase to make the protein coat of HT2 radioactive in their experiment. Let's first just briefly recall from our content video what the purpose of Hershey and Chase is experiment was with those pages And that was to determine whether DNA or protein was the genetic material. Of course initially scientists thought protein was the more promising candidate due to its greater structural diversity, 20 amino acids sounded like a better genetic alphabet. So their experiment looked at these pages since the pages would attach to the bacterial cell, inject material that replicated and enlist the cell. So they guessed the even the pages had only a protein outer protein coat and D. N. A. That whatever the material was that went inside the cell and replicated itself was the genetic material. So they came up with the rather clever idea to specifically label the protein and DNA. In two different ways to determine which was the material that went inside the cell. So our question is asking us which they use to make the protein coat radioactive and in this case um that was choice a sulfur because sulfur is an element found in proteins but not in D. N. A. So that allowed them to distinguish the two materials choice. B phosphorus is not our answer because phosphorus is what they use to label D. N. A. D. N. A. Has phosphorus protein does not. So the radioactive phosphorus distinguished the D. N. A. From the protein. And then choices C. And D. Nitrogen and carbon were not the elements used because they're found in both protein and DNA. So it wouldn't be useful for distinguishing between the two. So again, the radioactive element used by Hershey and Chase to make the protein coat of HT radioactive was choice a sulfur in the next video.