Pulse Chase Primer: The Meselson-Stahl Experiment

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Resource Type

Level

High School — GeneralHigh School — AP/IBCollege
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Description

This activity can be used in conjunction with the short film The Double Helix. It introduces students to the classic experiment by Matthew Meselson and Franklin Stahl, which revealed that DNA replication follows the semiconservative model.

In 1958, Meselson and Stahl published the results of a pulse-chase experiment to determine how cells replicate their DNA. Students will first read about how the experiment was conducted and describe the predicted results based on three possible models of DNA replication. They then evaluate the actual experimental results.

Student Learning Targets

  • Interpret experimental evidence to distinguish between different models of DNA replication.

  • Describe the semiconservative model of DNA replication.

Estimated Time

One 50-minute class period.

Key Terms

conservative replication, dispersive replication, experiment, nucleotide, radioactive, replication, semiconservative replication

Primary Literature

Meselson, Matthew, and Franklin W. Stahl. “The Replication of DNA in Escherichia coli.” Proceedings of the National Academies of Science 44, 7 (1958): 671–682. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.44.7.671.

Terms of Use

The resource is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license. No rights are granted to use HHMI’s or BioInteractive’s names or logos independent from this Resource or in any derivative works.

Version History

Date Published
Date Updated

NGSS (2013)

HS-LS1-1, HS-LS3-1; SEP2, SEP4

AP Biology (2019)

IST-1.M; SP2, SP3, SP4

IB Biology (2016)

2.6, 2.7

Common Core (2010)

ELA-RST.9–12.7

Vision and Change (2009)

CC2, CC3; DP1, DP3

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Double Helix and Pulse-Chase Experiment

Educator Cheryl Coronado discusses how she uses the short film "The Double Helix" to introduce her students to how DNA's structure was uncovered. She then follows with the accompanying pulse-chase student activity that describes the experiment that proved DNA replication is semi-conservative.
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