Key Area 5: The Structure of the Genome Flashcards
What is the genome?
The entire hereditary information of an organism encoded in DNA.
What is the genome made from?
Genes and other DNA sequences that do not code for proteins.
What does most of the eukaryotic genome consist of?
Non-coding sequences.
What is a gene?
DNA sequences that code for protein.
What can other non coding sequences do?
They can regulate transcription (bind proteins which promode or prevent transcription of a gene); they can be transcribed or translated; or they have no known function.
What does RNA polymerase need to initiate the the process of transcription?
Transcription factors.
What are some transcription factors called?
Activators.
What are activators?
Things that bind to non-coding regulator sequences of DNA.
What brings the regulator into contact with other transcription factors close to the promoter of the gene to be transcribed?
Bending of the DNA strand.
What forms at the gene’s promoter site when the regulator comes in contact with transctiption factors?
A molecular complex.
What type of sequence of DNA bases regulates the transcription of a gene?
Non-coding.
