4 | Recombinant DNA Techniques and Molecular Cloning Flashcards
What is nucleotide made up from?
nucleoside and phosphate group
What is a nucleoside made up from?
DNA: 2-deoxyribose + nitrogenous base
RNA: ribose + nitrogenous base
What bond is between adjacent sugars?
5’-to-3’ phosphodiester bond
Which two purine bases do we have?
A and G
Which 3 pyrimidine bases do we have?
C, U (only RNA) and T (only DNA)
what is the hyper chromic effect?
A phenomenon at which the absorbance at 260 nm increases as the DNA becomes denatured
The temperature at which 50% of the DNA is melted is termed the?
melting temperature
Measurements of the rate of renaturation
can give information about the complexity of a DNA preparation, how can it be so?
Because a stable double-stranded molecule will only be formed if the complementary strands collide in such a way that their bases are paired precisely, which is a higher probability in the event of reassociate for shorter DNAs
Each gene is located at a particular position along the chromosome, termed the ?
locus
particular form of the gene is termed the
allele
In mammalian DNA, each gene is present in two allelic forms that may be
identical (_____) or that may vary (____)
homozygous
heterozygous
The occurrence of different alleles at the same site in the genome is termed
polymorphism
What are SNPs?
SNPs are substitutions of one base at a precise location within the genome
What phase is resp. for DNA condensing to form a number of very distinct chromosome structures at a particular point in the cell division cycle.
And the complete array of chromosomes in an organism is termed
meta
Karyotype
A sequence flanked by a start (ATG) and a stop codon (TAT / TAG / TGA), containing a number of codons that may be read in-frame to represent a continuous
protein sequence is termed ?
ORF
Within epigenetic, DNA methylation is the most important modification, what’s happening?
addition of a methyl (CH 3 ) group to the 5 -carbon on cytosine to give methylcytosine ( 5mC ), catalysed by DNA methyltransferases. giving a CpG pattern.
What main 3 RNA types are there?
In eukaryotic cells alone a further group of RNA molecules termed small nuclear
RNA ( snRNA) is present, which functions within the nucleus and promotes the?
mRNA
rRNA
tRNA
maturation of mRNA molecules
micro-RNA and small interfering RNA are present and known to contribute to
modulation of gene expression
Describe packaging of DNA?
For prokaryotes
and eukaryotes
- associated with nucleoside proteins in the cytoplasm, tightly coiled by topoisomerase enzymes
- Within the nucleus, DNA is winded around a core complex of 4 types histones in a octamer structure forming a nucleosome
These nucleosomes are associated to a form a second level of packaging termed a chromatin fibre, which in of themselves can further be folded and looped forming chromosome structures
What enzyme is used to unwound DNA
and what proteins ensure that the single strands are prevented from reannealing?
DNA helices
SSBs
What group on primer is vital for the DNA polymerase III to add nucleotides?
3’-OH
RNA primers are removed by?inprocaryotes
DNA pol I
In regard to DNA protection for bacteria what two compounds are included in a restriction modification system of type 2 to proofread replicated DNA sequences?
DNA methylase
restriction endonuclease
that recognises short (4–6 bp)
palindromic sequences and cleaves foreign unmethylated DNA at a particular target
sequence
Messenger RNA is synthesised by RNA polymerase __,
while RNA polymerases I and III
catalyse the synthesis of :
II
rRNA (I), tRNA and snRNA (III).
In eukaryotes the upstream promotor element responsible for initial
recognition and binding of RNA polymerase to the TATA box in DNA is called?
CAAT box
Transcription of a eukaryotic gene results in the production of a
hnRNA, undergoes three events:
capping
polyA-tail exon splicing
Transcription of a eukaryotic gene results in the production of a ___ before mature mRNA is formed.
hnRNA, undergoes three events:
capping 5’-P group on G residue
polyA-tail on 3’-OH by poly (A) polymerase
Intron splicing mediated by snRNA’s found in spliceesome
In translation of mRNA what three stages are there?
Initionation
elongation
termination
One control mechanism that aid in the modulation of mRNA, responsible of degrading mRNA, what is it called?
RNA interference.
What type of enzyme have been widely exploited in molecular biology to enable the construction of recombinant
DNA, throu cleavage in a defined manner?
restriction endonucleases creating staggered ends or flush-ended.
In the extraction process of DNA when we’re talking about recovering DNA from cells, what compound is usually present when we cell rupture?
EDTA, which chelates
the Mg 2+ ions needed for enzymes that degrade DNA (termed DNases)
how do we degrade cell walls if present, when the cell is ruptured?
and what should we do with the cell membrane?
digested enzymatically (e.g. lysozyme treatment of bacteria)
solubilise with detergent
When we try to isolate DNA, the first step is to be sure to prevent the DNA from fragmenting by mechanical shearing, thus we want to choose the gentles possible method of rupture, so at what temp should this be performed?
4
After release of nucleic acids from the cells, RNA can be removed by treatment with?
and how about protein?
Finally, the DNA preparation is mixed with two volumes
of absolute ___, and the DNA allowed to precipitate out of solution in a
freezer.
- RNase
- by shaking the solution gently with water-saturated phenol, or with a phenol/
chloroform mixture, either of which will denature proteins, but not nucleic acids. - ethanol
How do we check for integrity of DNA?
agarose gel electrophoresis
Regarding UV spectroscopy, what ratio of absorbances between 260 and 280 nm tell us that the sample(DNA) is free of protein contamination?
1.8
What’s the differentiating factor one should keep in mind when we talk about differences between RNA and DNA isolation?
That RNA is very vulnerable to digestion by RNases, thus gloves should be worn, and a strong detergent should be included in the isolation medium to immediately denature any RNases.
In the case of isolating eukaryotic mRNA from a mixture of total RNA molecules, which technique can we use, if we note that we can make use of the fact of the presence of a poly(A) tail binds to the complementary oligo(dT) molecules of the column at high salt conc.
affinity chromatography
what type of gel electrophoresis can we use to separate large fragments of DNA, like chromosomes?
pulsed-field
following electrophoresis of DNA in horizontal agarose gels, give an example of an staining dye?
and how does it dye?
SYBR safe
it interchelates by insertion between the stacked base-pairs
After electrophoresis of DNA, how are these desired fragments removed (3)?
- physically by an scalpel
- glass-rod-crushing in a small volume buffer using agarose to digest the agarose
- electroelution
Gel electrophoresis remains the established method for the separation and analysis
of nucleic acids. However, a number of automated systems using pre-cast gels
and standardised reagents are available that are now very popular. This is especially
useful in situations where?
a large # of samples or high-throughput analysis is required
In regard to automated analysis of nucleic acid fragments, what 3 proposed methods are there?
- instruments employing micro fluidic circuits
- HPLC (which has gained popularity in DNA mutation analysis)
- MALDI-TOF
Explain Restriction mapping of DNA fragments?
how can this technique be used?
We analyse sizes that are produced by restriction enzymes in conjunction with bioinformatic analysis of the restriction fragment lengths to construct a map
by using restriction endonucleases we are able to distinguish which plasmids contain different bacterial strain ORFs.
identification of specific mRNA sequences of
a defined length by hybridisation to a labelled gene probe, is known as?
Northern blotting
How are a gene probe made?
by artificial chemical synthesis, by linking monomers of phosphoramadites forming an oligonucleotide
What is the most common compound that one may label DNA gene probes with?
how is this newly labelled probe, then purified?
32P, used in 5’ end-labelling (direct) carried out by alkaline phosphates followed by polynucleotide kinase
SEC
Explain Random Primer labelling of DNA?
DNA is first denatured, then placed in renaturing conditions with a mixture of hexamers that bind to DNA when finding complementary sequences, these hexanucleotides acts as primers for the synthesis of fresh strand of DNA catalysed by DNA polymerase since it has an exposed 3’-OH group
A further traditional method of labelling DNA is by the process of __ ___
Low concentrations of DNase I are used to make occasional single-strand nicks in the
double-stranded DNA that is intended as the gene probe
nick translation .
what type of probe is used to detect DNA amplification accomplished by the PCR
Molecular beacon probes
In PCR what stages are there in one cycle?
- Denaturation
- Annealing
- Extension
What factors do we have to consider wrt. the specificity of the PCR design regarding the design of the 2 primers?
These have to not only be complementary to sequences flanking the target DNA, but also
must not be self-complementary or bind to each other to form dimers since either
scenario prevents DNA amplifi cation. They must also be matched in their GC content
and have similar annealing temperatures in order to allow for a an optimum annealing
temperature
The annealing step allows the ____ of the two oligonucleotide primers, which are present in excess, to bind to their complementary
sites that flank the target DNA
hybridisation