12 



It appears practically certain that the fundamen- 

 • tal structures of all living organisms are spiral 

 (helical). 



And yet there is not a textbook of biology in existence 

 which even mentions the spiral chemical structure! 



PROTEIN CHEMICAL FABRIC 



In order to account for the complex hereditary pat- 

 terns of the higher plants and animals, we must assume 

 that there are at least three points on the periphery of 

 each spiral where it can be attached to adjacent spirals. 

 One mode of attachment is undoubtedly between two 

 hydroxyl groups by the elimination of a molecule of 

 water, the two spirals being then connected through in- 

 termediate oxygen atoms. It is interesting to observe 

 that this connection is similar to that which occurs in 

 polysaccharides. 



The hydroxyl groups, however, occur only at two dia- 

 metrically opposite sides, so that connections through 

 oxygen atoms could produce only flat sheets but not 

 three-dimensional patterns. There must be some other 

 points of connection, but where can they be 1 The carbon 

 atoms have all their valencies occupied, and the three 

 valencies of the nitrogen atoms are also occupied. The 

 additional connections must be in the form of branched 

 valence bonds, such as we have in tetravalent and pen- 

 tavalent nitrogen, and will be most likely to occur be- 

 tween the nitrogen atoms and the alpha carbon atoms 

 (those of the — CHR — groups) so as to produce some- 

 thing in the nature of hydrogen bonds. With these two 

 kinds of bonds we can produce rectangular lattice struc- 

 tures as shown in the diagram. Since the distance be- 

 tween adjacent carbon and nitrogen atoms in organic 

 compounds is about 1.4 Angstrom units, we can calculate 

 the dimensions of the rectangular compartments of this 



