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:
“As the mother of a son, I do not accept that alienation from me is necessary for his discovery of himself. As a woman, I will not cooperate in demeaning womanly things so that he can be proud to be a man. I like to think the women in my son’s future are counting on me.”
—Letty Cottin Pogrebin (20th century)
“We are all humiliated by the sudden discovery of a fact which has existed very comfortably and perhaps been staring at us in private while we have been making up our world entirely without it.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“That the discovery of this great truth, which lies so near and obvious to the mind, should be attained to by the reason of so very few, is a sad instance of the stupidity and inattention of men, who, though they are surrounded with such clear manifestations of the Deity, are yet so little affected by them, that they seem as it were blinded with excess of light.”
—George Berkeley (1685–1753)