Discovery
The period gene and three mutants (perS, perL, and per0) were isolated in an EMS mutagenesis screen by Ronald Konopka and Seymour Benzer in 1971. The perS, perL, and per0 mutations were found to complement each other, so it was concluded that the three phenotypes were due to mutations in the same gene. The discovery of mutants that altered the period of circadian rhythms in eclosion and locomotor activity (perS and perL) indicated the role of the per gene in the clock itself and not an output pathway. The period gene was first sequenced in 1984 by Michael Rosbash and colleagues. In 1998, it was discovered that per produces two transcripts (differing only by the alternative splicing of a single untranslated intron) which both encode the PER protein.
Read more about this topic: Period (gene)
Famous quotes containing the word discovery:
“The gain is not the having of children; it is the discovery of love and how to be loving.”
—Polly Berrien Berends (20th century)
“We early arrive at the great discovery that there is one mind common to all individual men: that what is individual is less than what is universal ... that error, vice and disease have their seat in the superficial or individual nature.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
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—George Berkeley (1685–1753)