Eukaryotic Genes

Question 1

What makes transcription so much more complicated in eukaryotes than in prokaryotes?

Answer 1

• Eukaryotes have 3 types of RNA polymerases (5 in plants)
• Gazillions of more proteins
• Have introns and exons
• DNA is packaged in a more complex way

Question 2

What do eukaryotes have in addition to promoters? What do they do?

Answer 2

In addition to enhancers, eukaryotes have upstream enhancer elements which controls transcription efficiency.

Question 3

What is an exon?

Answer 3

Part of CDS which gets transcribed to RNA and encodes a protein.

Question 4

What is an intron?

Answer 4

Part of CDS which gets transcribed but does not code for protein.

Question 5

What is the eukaryotic equivalent of the -10 element in prokaryotes?

Answer 5

The TATA box

Question 6

How far upstream are enhancers?

Answer 6

1000’s of bps

Question 7

What is the class II promoter in the eukaryotic gene? What are its two parts?

Answer 7

Points RNA polymerase in the correct direction for transcription. Composed of the core promoter (6 elements) and the upstream element.