Chapter 9 Flashcards
What is molecular genetics?
An examination of DNA structure and Function at the Molecular level.
What does DNA stand for?
Deoxyribonucleic Acid
What does RNA stand for?
Ribonucleic Acid
For DNA to fulfill its role as genetic material, what is the first criteria?
Information
The genetic material must contain the information necessary to construct an entire organism. It must provide the blueprint for determining the inherited traits of an organism.
For DNA to fulfill its role as genetic material, what is the second criteria?
Transmission
Genetic material must be passed from parent to offspring
For DNA to fulfill its role as genetic material, what is the third criteria?
Replication
The genetic material is passed from parents to offspring, and from mother cell to daughter cells during cell division, it must be copied.
For DNA to fulfill its role as genetic material, what is the fourth criteria?
Variation
Phenotypic variability must occur and that happens if the genetic material must also vary in ways that can account for the known phenotypic difference within the species.
What is virulence?
Ability to cause disease
What was Frederick Griffith’s experiement?
Studied certain strains of S. penumoniae and saw that some secrete a polysaccharide capsule, wheras other strains do not. When streaked on a petri dish, capsule-secreting strains have a smooth colony morphology, while those strains unable to secrete a capsule have a rough appearance. The different strains also affect their ability to cause disease. Smooth can overcome immune system, rough is destroyed.
Why would a mouse infected with both rough s. pneumoniae and dead smooth S. penumoniae die?
The type R bacteria had taken up genetic material from the heat-killed type smooth bacteria, converted the rough bacteria into the Smooth bacteria. This allowed them to kill the mouse.
Who coined the term transformation?
Fredrick Griffith
What is transformation again?
When a plasmid vector or segment of chromosomal DNA is introduced into the bacterial cell.
What is the transforming principle?
Unidentified substance causing transformation to occur
How does Griffith’s experiment follow the four criteria for genetic material?
The transformed bacteria acquired the information to make a capsule.
Among different strains, variation exists.
The genetic material that is necessary to create a capsule must be replicated so it can be transmitted from mother to daughter cells during cell division.
Generally what did Griffith’s experiment show?
Some genetic material from the dead bacteria had been transferred to the living bacteria and provided them with a new trait.
Who used Griffith’s experiment to determine what the genetic material was?
Avery
MacLeod
McCarty
What did Avery Macleod, and McCarty do experimentally?
Established biochemical purification procedures and prepared the S. pneumoniae strains. After many extracts, they discovered that only the extract that contained purified DNA from S bacteria, were able to convert R to S.
What was the purpose of adding RNase and protease to a DNA extract?
RNase and protease were added to the DNA extract to rule out the possibility that small amounts of contaminating RNA or protein was responsible for converting the type R. bacteria into type S.
How did Avery, MacLeod, and McCarty verify that DNA and not some contaminating substances were the source of the genetic material?
They treated the DNA extract with enzymes that digest DNA, RNA, and Protein
What are the three enzymes that digest DNA, RNA, and Protein?
DNase,
RNase
protease
What were the results when the extracts were treated with RNase and protease?
They still converted type R bacteria into type S.
Which shows that RNA and Protein were not the genetic material.
What was the results when the extract was treated with DNase?
It lost its ability to convert type R into type S bacteria. Thus showing DNA is the genetic material, or DNA is the transforming principle.
What was Alfred Hershey and Martha Chase’s experiment?
They took another approach to prove DNA is the genetic material using virus T2.
The external structure of the T2 phage, is called what?
The capsid or phage coat
What does the capsid or phage coat consist of?
A head, sheath, tail fibers, and base plate.
Biochemically, the phage coat is composed entirely of what?
Protein, which includes several different polypeptides.
DNA is found where in the T2 capsid?
The head
Why is the T2 virus considered simple by the molecular point of view?
It is only composed of two macromolecules:
DNA and Proteins
The genetic material of a bacteriophage contains many genes which provide what?
The blueprint for making new viruses
Can a virus itself synthesize a new virus?
No
The virus must do what with its genetic material?
It must introduce its genetic material into the cytoplasm of a living cell.
How does a T2 insert its genetic material?
Starting with its tail fibers, it attaches to the bacterial cell wall and inject the genetic material into the cytoplasm. The phage coat remains attached on the outside of the bacterium and does not enter the cell.
For infection to occur, what has to happen to the T2 genetic material?
It must be injected into the bacterial cytoplasm.
How did Hershey and Chase verify DNA is the genetic material of T2?
They devised a method to separate the phage coat from the genetic material which is injected into the cytoplasm. They exposed bacteria to T2 phage, allowig sufficient time for inject material, then sheared the phage coat from the bacteria by a blender treatment. Thus the genetic material was separated from the protein.
In the experiment of Avery, Mcleod, and McCarty, the addition of RNase and protease to the DNA extracts
a. prevented the conversion of type S bacteria into type R bacteria.
b. allowed the conversion of type S bacteria into type R bacteria.
c. prevented the conversion of type R bacteria into type s bacteria.
d. allowed the conversion of type R bacteria into type S bacteria.
d. allowed the conversion of type R bacteria into type S bacteria.
In the Hershey and Chase experiment involving T2 phage, after blender treatment and centrifugation
a. most of the 32P was in the supernatant and most of the 35S was in the pellet.
b. Most of the 35S was in the supernatant and most of the 32P was in the pellet
c. equal amounts of 32P and 35S were in the supernatant and pellet.
d. none of the above.
b. Most of the 35S was in the supernatant and most of the 32P was in the pellet
Who coined the term nucleic acids? When
Friedrich Miescher
1869
What was Friedrich Miescher’s observations?
He identified a novel phosphorus-containing substance from the nuclei of white blood cells found in waste surgical bandages. He named it nuclein.
What was learned as the structure of DNA and RNA became better understood?
They are acidic molecules, which means they release hydrogen ions in solution and have a net negative charge at neutral pH.
What are the levels of nucleic acid structure?
- nucleotides form the repeating structural unit of nucleic acids
- Nucleotides are linked together in a linear manner to form a strand of DNA or RNA
- Two strands of DNA (and sometimes strands of RNA) interact with each other to form a double helix
- The three dimensional structure of DNA results from the folding and bending of the double helix. Within living cells, DNA is associated with a wide variety of proteins that influence its structure.
When going from simple to complex, which of the following is the proper order for DNA?
a. nucleotide, double helix, DNA strand, Chromosome
B. Nucleotide, chromosome, double helix, DNA strand
C. nucleotide, DNA strand, double helix, chromosome
D. Chromosome, nucleotide, DNA strand, double helix.
C. nucleotide, DNA strand, double helix, chromosome
A nucleotide has what three components?
At least one phosphate group
A pentose sugar
Nitrogenous base
Nucleotides vary with regard to what?
The sugar and the nitrogenous base
What are the two types of sugars in nucleotides?
Deoxyribose
Ribose
What are the two subdivisions of the five different bases in nucleotides?
Purines
Pyrimidines
What are the purine bases?
Adenine
Guanine
What are the pyrimidine bases?
Thymine
Cytosine
Uracil
Purine bases contain what?
A double ring structure
Pyrimidine bases contain what?
Single ring structure
Which base is not found in RNA?
Thymine
What is found in RNA to replace thymine?
Uracil.
Which bases are in both DNA and RNA?
Adenine
Guanine
Cytosine
The bases and sugars have a standard what?
Numbering system
The nitrogen and carbon atoms found in the ring structure of the bases are given what numbers for purines?
1-9
The nitrogen and carbon atoms found in the ring structure of the bases are given what numbers for pyrimidines?
1-6
The five carbons found in sugars are designated with what numbers?
Primes such as 1 to distinguish them from the number found in the bases.
Which components are not found in DNA?
Ribose
Uracil
What are important for the nucleotide’s function?
The locations of the attachment sites of the base and phosphate to the sugar molecule
In the sugar ring, carbon atoms are numbered how?
In a clockwise direction, beginning with a carbon atom adjacent to the ring oxygen atom. The fifth carbon is outside the ring structure.
In a single nucleotide, the base is always what?
Attached to the 1’ carbon atom, and one or more phosphate groups are attached at the 5’ position.
The -OH group attached to the 3’ carbon is important in what?
Allowing nucleotides to form covalent linkages with each other.
The terminology used to describe nucleic acid units is based on what three structural features?
The type of sugar
The type of base
The number of phosphate groups.
What is a nucleoside?
When a sugar is attached to only a base, the pair is called a nucleoside
What is a adenosine?
Ribose is attached to adenine
What are the names of nucleosides composed of ribose and guanine, cytosine, or uracil?
Guanosine
Cytidine
Uridine
What are nucleosides made of deoxyribose and adenine, guanine, thymine, or cytosine called?
Deoxyadenosine
Deoxyguanosine
Deoxythymidine
Deoxycytidine
What creates a nucleotide?
The covalent attachment of one or more phosphate molecules to a nucleoside.
One or more phosphate groups are attached to a sugar via what bond?
Ester bond.
If a nucleotide contains ribose, adenine, and one phosphate, what is it called?
Adenosine monophosphate
AMP