There are in fact various books where each chapter is written like a published review. These are not text books, but they are very technical. Off the top of my head I can think of this one for example:
Hatfield DL, Berry MJ, Gladyshev VN. Editors. (2011) Selenium: Its molecular biology and role in human health, 3rd Edition. Springer.
Like all such books, it consists of various chapters, each of which is a short review of the relevant topic by leading authors in the field. The problem with this is that a certain level of knowledge is assumed. Using your example, you won't be able to understand the original DNA paper if you don't understand the results of X-Ray crystalography experiments. Published articles assume that the reader is already an expert and they won't explain basic concepts.
A better way would be to read your textbook and then, once you have read and understood a chapter, look into that chapter's references and read through those. Most serious textbooks include published articles at the end of each chapter, if yours does not, get a new textbook.
Finally, another choice would be to read a review article. Those of the Trends and Current Opinion series are particularly good. They tend to be very well written and, most importantly, highlight the seminal papers in their references. Just pick one that is about a subject you are interested in and then look at the references. The important papers in the field will be marked with • and seminal works with ••. So, read the review and then read the •• papers.
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