Discussion Reading 2

Question 1

Number of genes in the human genome

Answer 1

less than 25000

Question 2

humans make how many different types of protein

Answer 2

90000

Question 3

Why so few genes when you need to produce many proteins?

Answer 3

Alternative splicing

Question 4

Alternative splicing increases an organism’s

Answer 4

complexity

Question 5

Number of human genes subject to alternative splicing

Answer 5

75%

Question 6

Alternative splicing

Answer 6

introns may be kept during the splicing process, and exons may be discarded.

Question 7

Prior belief about splicing

Answer 7

Introns always discarded, exons always kept.

Question 8

Which enzyme carries out RNA editing?

Answer 8

Spliceosome.

Question 9

RNA editing is controlled by what?

Answer 9

Splicing regulatory (SR) proteins.

Question 10

Spliceosomes are composed of what?

Answer 10

5 snRNA (Small nuclear RNA) and 150 proteins.

Question 11

Spliceosomes do what?

Answer 11

Recognize start and ends of introns and cuts introns out and joins exons in the pre-mRNA transcript.

Question 12

Are humans the only organism with alternative splicing?

Answer 12

No, many other organisms have this, like fruit flies.

Question 13

Most common type of alternative splicing in mammals

Answer 13

Exon skipping

Question 14

Alternative splicing dangers

Answer 14

an error in splicing can cause defective proteins, or mutations.

Question 15

Organism with most introns per gene

Answer 15

humans

Question 16

On average, each gene generates this many alternatively spliced mRNAs

Answer 16

3

Question 17

Exotic sequences make up what percent of our genome?

Answer 17

1-2 percent

Question 18

understanding splicing mechanism advantage

Answer 18

Lead to cures for inherited and acquired disorders

Question 19

Humans, mice, and other primates are very different from each other, despite having very similar genes because of:

Answer 19

alternative splicing