Kapitel 8 Flashcards
The ability of differentiated cells and their descendants to maintain their identity.
cell memory
Describes the way in which groups of transcription regulators work together to regulate the expression of a single gene.
combinatorial control
Process by which a cell undergoes a progressive - coordinated change to a more specialized cell type - brought about by large-scale changes in gene expression.
differentiation
The enzymatic addition of methyl groups to cytosine bases in DNA; this covalent modification generally turns off genes by attracting proteins that block gene expression.
DNA methylation
The transmission of a heritable pattern of gene expression from one cell to its progeny that does not involve altering the nucleotide sequence of the DNA.
epigenetic inheritance
Somatic cell that has been reprogrammed to resemble and behave like a pluripotent embryonic stem (ES) cell through the artificial introduction of a set of genes encoding particular transcription regulators.
induced pluripotent stem cell (iPS cell)
Class of RNA molecules more than 200 nucleotides in length that does not encode proteins.
long noncoding RNA
Small noncoding RNA that controls gene expression by base-pairing with a specific mRNA to regulate its stability and its translation.
microRNA (miRNA)
Cell capable of giving rise to any of the specialized cell types in the body.
pluripotent stem cell
An important form of regulation in which the end product of a reaction or pathway stimulates continued activity; controls a variety of biological processes - including enzyme activity - cell signaling - and gene expression.
positive feedback loop
Regulation of gene expression that occurs after transcription of the gene has begun; examples include RNA splicing and RNA interference.
post-transcriptional control
DNA sequence to which a transcription regulator binds to determine when - where - and in what quantities a gene is to be transcribed into RNA.
regulatory DNA sequence
RNA molecule that plays a role in controlling gene expression.
regulatory RNA
Gene encoding a protein whose activity is easy to monitor experimentally; used to study the expression pattern of a target gene or the localization of its protein product.
reporter gene
Cellular mechanism activated by double-stranded RNA molecules that results in the destruction of RNAs containing a similar nucleotide sequence. It is widely exploited as an experimental tool for preventing the expression of selected genes (gene silencing).
RNA interference (RNAi)