Nirenberg and Leder experiment

The Nirenberg and Leder experiment was a scientific experiment performed in 1964 by Marshall W. Nirenberg and Philip Leder. The experiment elucidated the triplet nature of the genetic code and allowed the codons of the standard genetic code to be deciphered.

In the experiment, various combinations of mRNA were passed through a filter which contained ribosomes. Unique triplets promoted the binding of specific tRNAs to the ribosome. By associating the tRNA with its specific amino acid, it was possible to determine the triplet mRNA sequence that coded for each amino acid.