Question

When Chargaff was performing his experiments, the tetranucleotide hypothesis, which stated that DNA was composed of GACT nucleotide repeats, was the most widely accepted view of DNA’s composition. How did Chargaff disprove this hypothesis?

Short answer

Chargaff disproved by showing that A=T and G=C, but that the four nucleotides are not equally distributed.

Step-by-step solution

Introduction

According to Chargaff, the most widely accepted theory on the structure of DNA is that Deoxyribonucleic Acid (DNA) is made up of the tetra-nucleotide GACT.

The explanation for the answer.

The four nucleotides (A=T=G=C) would need to be present in equal levels in DNA if the tetranucleotide hypothesis were to be correct. Chargaff, however, showed that A=T and G=C, but that the four nucleotides are not equally distributed.