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I hv heard about phosphorus that it is a constituent of certain protein, although we know that no amino acids have phosphorus... and if its true then how Alfred hershey and Martha chase experiment got acclaimed whose base of the experiment was that "protein doesn't have phosphorus"??

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    $\begingroup$ This should answer part of your question. $\endgroup$
    – canadianer
    Mar 31, 2020 at 3:54

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Yes some of the proteins contain phosphorus but in the experiment (Hershey and chase experiment) they used bacteriophage it's protein sheath contains carbon,hydrogen,nitrogen and sulphur while the DNA in the bacteriophage contains carbon,hydrogen,nitrogen and phosphorus(in the acid) so they selected this for that experiment moreover sulphur is absent in the DNA but phosphorus is not so one can conclude that DNA is the thing that was transferred Reference:NCERT

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Yes, None of the amino acid contain phosphorus in its side chain, but it is introduced during Post translational modification. This helps in stability and proper functioning of proteins. (Via:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3415839/.

As, phosphorus is main building block of nucleic acid not proteins, so its usage in production of new bacteriophage will represent utilization of phosphorus in nucleic acid synthesis.Further using the blender experiment, Hershey and Chase separated the protein coat of bacteriophage from its nuclei. And then introduced this nucleic acid into the bacteria, and found that it can reproduce to synthesize new viruses. And this proved that nucleic acid is responsible for transmission of genetic information.
(Via: https://embryo.asu.edu/pages/hershey-chase-experiments-1952-alfred-hershey-and-martha-chase)

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It is true that no amino acids contain phosphorus, but due to post-translational modifications some proteins can be phosphorylated. In addition, there are enzymatic proteins such as glycogen phosphorylase b, which are relatively inactive protein, and the change to the active forms (glycogen phosphorylase a) can be carried out by the action of phosphorylase kinase (Lehninger. Principles of Biochemistry. 5th Ed.)

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  • $\begingroup$ Your first sentence suggest that all amino acids contain phosphorous — is that what you intended? $\endgroup$
    – tyersome
    Apr 30, 2020 at 18:17

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