Introduction

In 1869 Miescher extracted a substance called “nuclein” from pus cells, obtained from surgical bandages, and salmon sperm.1 Twenty years later the term “nucleic acid” was introduced by Altmann,2 who developed methods for the isolation of nucleic acids (formerly known as nuclein) from yeast and animal tissue. The existence of the two major forms of nucleic acids, ribonucleic acid (RNA) and deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), was recognised during the early work of Miescher and Kossel3 however, the exact components (i.e. heterocyclic bases and furanose sugars) took longer to determine.4