Using genome projects

Question 1

What is a genome?

Answer 1

A genome is the complete set of genetic material of an organism.

Question 2

What can genome projects be used for?

Answer 2

Sequencing projects have read the genomes of a wide range of organisms from bacteria to fruit flies and humans. Genome projects can be used to determine evolutionary relationships between organisms.

Question 3

Describe sequencing the genomes of simpler organisms.

Answer 3

Simple organisms do not have introns. All DNA is coding. This means we can easily determine the proteome from the genome because it is the DNA base sequence which determines the sequence of amino acids in a specific polypeptide.

Question 4

What are advantages of sequencing the genomes of simpler organisms?

Answer 4

Identification of potential antigens on the surface of bacteria can help develop vaccines

Question 5

Why is genome sequencing more difficult in more complex organisms.

Answer 5

Genome sequencing is more difficult in more complex organisms due to the presence of introns and non coding multiple repeats. Also due to the presence of regulatory genes (which control which genes are translated or not) which means we have to identify the regions which are coding and non-coding first. Knowledge of the genome can therefore not easily be translated into the proteome.

Sequencing methods are continuously updated and have become automated and cheaper.