“Deoxy” to be or “Desoxy” not to be—a century-old tale in the history of DNA nomenclature

ABSTRACT This commentary discusses a comprehensive history of the first-ever use of pertinent words directly related to DNA, such as desoxyribose, deoxyribose, desoxyribonucleic acid, and deoxyribonucleic acid. With almost 100 years of the identification and nomenclature of desoxyribose sugar and desoxyribonucleic acid, the term “desoxy” continues to see limited use. We hope that whenever young researchers come across the sporadic occurrence of “desoxy” in any published text, they will not consider it a mistake.

"ribonucleic acid" (RNA).The earliest use of the "Desoxy" word in the scientific literature in relation to "des-/deoxyribonucleic acid" can be traced back to the report on "structure of thymonucleic acids" by Phoebus Levene in his 1928 Paper with Efim London (5) and later in 1929 commentary in the Journal of Biological Chemistry (JBC) (6) mentioning a specific word "guaninedesoxypentoside, " which was the guanine nucleoside of desoxyri bonucleic acid.They discovered that irrespective of being a reducing substance, this desoxysugar, a hydrolysis byproduct of these nucleosides, does not yield an osazone with phenylhydrazine.This is attributed to the absence of a 2′-hydroxyl group, in contrast to the well-documented ribose sugars, rendering it a fascinating component within the presently recognized DNA structure.Later in 1930, Levene and Dillon used the word desoxyribophosphoric acid in their JBC paper focused on intestinal nucleotidase (7); this can be considered the first synonymous usage of the des-/deoxyribonucleic acid.In the same year, Levene and Jorpes also used "desoxypentose nucleic acid" for thymonucleic acid in their JBC article (8).However, it was in 1931 that the exact term "desoxyribonu cleic acid" was used in one of the notable books, Nucleic Acids: American Chemical Society, No. 56, by Levene, Bass, and Noyes (9).Following this, the term "desoxyribonu cleic acid" was frequently used in the next two decades.
Interestingly, until the 1940s, it was believed that ribonucleic acid was present only in plants, bacteria, and fungi and desoxyribonucleic acid in animal cells.Challenging that view, Jean Brachet (1940) followed by James N. Davidson (1943) demonstrated that ribonucleic acid is also abundantly present in animal tissues such as the liver, pancreas, and brain as compared to "desoxyribonucleic acid" (10).Moreover, Davidson JN also suggested that DNA is present in the nucleus, and RNA is more abundant in the cytoplasm.In an arising series of terminology debates (11)(12)(13), "desoxyribonucleic acid" and "ribonucleic acid" were proposed to be renamed as "chromonucleic acid" and "plasmonucleic acid, " respectively, based on their relative presence in nuclear chromatin and plasmosome (cytoplasm).Amusingly, in 1949, it was also proposed to address "desoxyribonucleic acid" as "doRNA" (14).However, to date, it is still unclear how thymonucleic acid became desoxyribonucleic acid, and more importantly, how the field arrived at "desoxy" not to be and "deoxy" to be.
The term "desoxyribonucleic acid" was frequently used at least until 1945 when Davidson and Waymouth used the term "deoxyribonucleic acid" in a Biochemical Journal article (15,16).Later, in 1949, the abbreviation "DNA" was used by Davidson, Leslie, and Waymouth in their Biochemical Journal article (17).Seemingly, there is no single report or viewpoint that suggested the official transition from "desoxy" to "deoxy." Surprisingly, until 1944, Davidson regularly used "desoxyribonucleic acid" in all his manuscripts (18,19); however, in 1945, it changed into deoxyribonucleic acid.In another similar development, Henry, Stacey, and Teece had also used the term "deoxyribonucleic acid" in their 1945 Nature letter (20) in contrast to their 1943 Nature letter using "desoxyribo nucleic acid" (21) while discussing the histochemistry of the Gram-staining reaction in microorganisms.Other notable researchers, such as Chargaff, Watson, Crick, and Wilkins, also opted for the contrasting usage of these terms.Erwin Chargaff used the term "desoxyribonucleic acid" in all his publications up to 1953 and changed it to "deoxyribo nucleic acid" after that.Watson and Crick in their landmark paper (22) used the term "deoxyribonucleic acid, " which, intuitively enough, started dominating ever since (Fig. 1).However, one must notice that out of the seven references in that paper, four used "desoxyribonucleic acid" including Wilkins and colleagues' 1953 Biochim Biophys Acta paper (23).Contrary to this, Wilkins and colleagues also published an article in 1953 (24) along with Watson and Crick's landmark 1953 paper where they used the term "deoxyribonucleic acid." These examples suggest the interchangeable usage between desoxy and deoxy just before "deoxyribonucleic acid" became the predominant term.
Overall, it can be argued that although both "desoxyribonucleic acid" and "deoxyribo nucleic acid" have no literal difference in meaning, there might be a hidden tale behind their usage.Most of the DNA history takes a sharp turn from Friedrich Miescher (isolation of Nuclein in 1869) (2) to Albrecht Kossel (discovery of five nucleotide bases) (25) to Avery, Macleod, and McCarty (DNA-mediated bacterial transformation suggesting it as a genetic material in 1944) (26).Although there was a switch from "desoxy" to "deoxy" in 1945, we were not able to identify any assertive reason behind this.Prof. Roberto Kolter and one of the reviewers of this article provided a prevailing argument suggesting that the "lingua franca" of chemistry in the 19th century was German; considering this, English speakers learned such words in German first, and therefore, their initial pronunciation and spellings retained the "s" in "desoxy"; however, later, slowly migrated to the version without the "s" as in "deoxy." Even now, DNA is read/spoken/written as Desoxyribonukleinsäure (in German) and Ácido Desoxirribonucleico (in Spanish; at least among chemists).Nonetheless, it is worth noting that this is just one of the arguments, and the exact historical progression remains uncertain.Almost 100 years after the identification and naming of desoxyribose sugar and desoxyribonucleic acid, the term "desoxy" continues to see limited use even in the present times.We hope that this history will be remembered, and whenever young researchers come across the sporadic occurrence of "desoxy" in any published text, they will not consider it as a mistake.their commitment to science, inquisitiveness to ask questions, and continuous strive for knowledge.I will appeal to my young generation colleagues, let us not forget them.We thank Prof. Roberto Kolter and Dr. Christoph Weigel for providing valuable comments on this topic.G.S. is supported by the IIT Hyderabad seed grant and DST-INSPIRE Faculty Grant by the Government of India.J.C. is supported by a fellowship from the Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Government of India.I.M. is supported by the IIT Hyderabad seed grant.
The views expressed in this commentary are those of the authors and not necessarily those of either the funding agency or any other institution.