chromosomes week 8 Flashcards
what is euchromatin
- open structure
- active genes
- the leg bits of chromosomes
what is heterochromatin
- condensed structure
- active genes
- at ends and centre of chromosomes
what are telomeres
the bits at the end of chromosomes
what direction is DNA synthesised
5’ to 3’
what does DNA polymerase need to initiate DNA synthesis
RNA primer
what happens to the lagging strand in DNA replication
it is synthesised in fragments (Okazaki fragments) which are stitched together by ligase
why do telomeres get shorter as eukaryotes age
in the lagging strand the removal of the RNA primer causes a gap which is filled with repeats and is resynthisised by telomerase
- but telomerase is only expressed in certain cell types which is why telomeres shorten
what is the centromere
- site of kinetochore which is the protein complex that binds to microtubules
what happens in S phase
DNA replication occurs
what percentage of our DNA is protein coding
2%
what are some extragenic sequences (non-coding)
- tandomly repeated DNA sequences (satellite DNA and minisatellite DNA)
- highly repeated interspersed DNA sequences (SINEs - short interspersed nuclear elements and LINEs - long)
what is a chromatin
DNA packaged with histone proteins forms chromatin
what charge do histone proteins have
positive charge
what are the unit packages in chromatins called
nucleosomes
what is at the core of the nucleosome
eight histone proteins collectively called octameric histone and DNA gets wrapped round this (146bp wrapped 1.8 turns)
what are the histone protein types in the octameric histone
- histone H2A
- histone H2B
- histone 3
- histone 4
so two of each make the core
what does histone 1 do
binds to the base of the nucleosome and helps fix the DNA in place
what does the wrapping of nucleosomes form
- solenoid strucure
- about 6 nucleosomes per turn
so what is each bit of the condensed chromatin structure
- nucleosome
- chromatin fibre
- fibre-scaffold complex
- chromosome
what is the purpose of packaging DNA
- negatively charged DNA neutralised by positive charged histone proteins
- DNA takes up less space
- inactive DNA can be folded into inaccessible locations until required
- inactive chromatin characterised by specific histone modification (e.g. methylation)
what is the shorter arm on a chromosome called
p or petite arm
what is the longer arm on a chromosome called
q arm
what is a metacentric chromosome
where centromere is close to being in the middle
what is a submetacentric chromosome
where centromere is displaced from centre
what is an acrocentric chromosome
the centromere is so far displaced that the petite arm contains no functional DNA
what is a karyotype
A karyotype is a preparation of the complete set of metaphase chromosomes sorted by length, centromere location and other features.
what is chromosome analysis
- blood taken
- remove red cells (no nucleus)
- culture white cells
- incubate
- colchicine added (mitotic inhibitor)
- separate off white cells
- saline added
- stain
- photograph
what is fluorescent in situ hybridisation (FISH)
a more detailed way of looking at specific chromosome sequences
sequence of interest labelled with fluorescent dye
what is meiosis
- cell division in germ cells
- diploid cells (ovaries/testes) divide to form haploid cells
- chromosome are passed on as re-arranged (recombined) copies
what is oogenesis
process of egg formation