Nuclein

The discovery of nucleic acids is due to Friedrich Miescher (1869), who working with salmon leukocytes and spermatozoa obtained a substance rich in carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen and a high percentage of phosphorus. This substance was originally called nuclein, because it is found in the nucleus.

Years later, this nuclein was fragmented, separating a protein component and a prosthetic group; the latter, being acid, was called nucleic acid.

In the 1930s, Kossel found that they had a rather complex structure.

In 1953, Francis Crick and James Dewey Watson discovered the three-dimensional structure of one of these acids, specifically deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA).