Gauvrit section post midterm Flashcards
(240 cards)
should you go back and do the first lecture in this section?
yes
What is DNA supercoiling?
DNA that is more compact than its relaxed counterpart is supercoiled
- Underwound DNA is negatively supercoiled
- Overwound DNA is positively supercoiled
- negative supercoiling is important to allow chromosomes to fit within nucleus
What are the two kinds of topoisomerases?
- Change the level of DNA supercoiling
- Type I - change the supercoiled state by creating a transient break in one strand of the duplex
- Type II - make a transient break in both strands of DNA duplex - can tie or untie knots - can interlink or separate circles
What is DNA denaturation?
Ability to sperate into components
- thermal denaturation
- more GC means higher melting point
What is nucleic acid hybridization?
complementary strands of nucleic acids from different sources can form hybrid molecules - important for sequencing and cloning
What are the three broad classes of DNA sequences?
- classes by how often their nucleotide sequence is repeated
- highly repeated fraction
- moderately repeated fraction
-nonrepeated fraction
What are three common highly repeated DNA sequences? How much of our total DNA are they?
1-10% of total DNA
- Satellite DNA - short sequences that evolve rapidly
- Minisatellite DNA - unstable and tend to be variable in the population - DNA fingerprinting
- Microsatellite DNA - shortest sequences and typically found in small clusters - found in genetic disorders
What is FISH?
Fluorescence in situ hybridization
- used to determine location of a DNA sequence within a genome
- can be used to visualize repetitive sequences like satellite DNA found in the centromeric regions of the chromosome - or to determine the position of single copy genes
What are moderately repeated DNA sequences? How much of our total DNA do they make up?
Varies greatly - between 20 and 80% of DNA
- some sequences code for abundant gene products like RNA but most lack a coding function
- noncoding elements are scattered throughout the genome and can be grouped into SINES or LINES
What are SINES and LINES?
Short interspersed elements and long interspersed elements
What are nonrepeated DNA sequences?
single copy DNA sequences invlude genes that exhibit mendelian patterns of inheritance and localize to a particular site on a particular chromosome
- includes coding sequences for virtually all proteins other than histones - less than 1.5% of genome
- even though sequences are only in one copy - genes that code for polypeptides are usually members of a family of related genes like globins actins etc
What is polyploidization?
Whole genome duplication - offspring have four chromosome homologues rather than 2
- often done to produce bigger fruits
-
What is the globin family and how did these genes evolve?
Hemoglobin, myoglobin, plant leghemoglobin
- ancestral forms have given rise to modern forms by duplication fusion and divergence
- some sequences called pseudogenes resemble globin genes but are nonfunctional
What do “jumping genes” refer to?
genetic rearrangement of genetic elements called transposition - via transposable elements
- only certain sequences can act on transposons
- requires enzyme transposase
- retrotransposons use RNA which produces complementary DNA vs reverse transcriptase
How are jumping genes important in adaptive genome evolution?
- transposable elements can carry parts of the host genome with them as they move from one site to another
- transposable elements themselves appear to have given rise to genes
How many genes does the human genome have?
20 000
What is alternative splicing?
when a single gene can encode a number of related proteins
is a significant proportion of functional DNA conserved?
no they are constantly evolving
The majority of the genome lies between ____ and its termed ____
lies between protein coding genes and is termed intergenic
- much of the 21000 protein coding regions consist of non coding portions (intronic DNA)
What are three genes that are relevant in humans and chimps
FOXP2 - similar in humans and chimps -speech gene
HAR1 - similar between humans and chimps - function unknown
AMY1 - amylase enzyme - frequency is very different
What is the exome?
portion of the genome that codes for proteins
What are the three parts of a chromosome?
- chromatin - fibers composed of DNA and proteins
- histones - highly conserved proteins
- nucleosomes - the subunits that DNA and histones are organized into
Explain the structure of a nucleosome complex;
Histone H1 serves as a linker
- DNAis wrapped around the core complex
- the core complex is 2 H2A, H2B, H3, H4 - forming an octomer
-
What groove faces the histone core?
minor groove