Exam 2 Flashcards
Explain DNA as an information carrier.
-Hydrogen bonding between bases A-T and G-C allows for the production of exact copies of encoded information and this can be replicated
-GTAACGC on one stand means CATTGCG on the other strand
The discovery of DNA suggested a mechanism for the transmission of genetic information
What grooves does DNA form and why do they matter?
Major and minor
-these are sites of interactions with protein and nucleic acids
What is the most common helix form of DNA?
Right-handed helix
what is the directionality of the DNA double helix?
Antiparallel strands: Opposite directionality
How many base pairs make up the most common Helix?
Most common B has a range of 10.1-10.5 bp/turn
roughly 10
What are other forms of DNA?
Describe the direction, occurrence, and condition
B-DNA: Right, Most common, normal
A-DNA(11bp/turn): Right, RNA-RNA, and RNA-DNA, If water is removed, B to A change
Z-DNA(12bp/turn): Left, near transcription start sites, alternating GC’s
What is a palindrome?
DNA where two complementary strands have the same sequence when read in the 5’3 direction or the 3’-5’ direction
ex.
5’<- GAATTCGAATTC-> 3’
3’ <- CTTAAGCTTAAG-> 5’
What is an inverted repeat?
-Complementary sequence that occurs on the same strand of DNA or RNA but in the inverse direction
-Allow for the formation of hairpin or cruciform structures
What is a mirror repeat?
-Inverted repeat sequence is nonpalindromic
What is the biological significance of different DNA structures?
-Slowing or blocking protein synthesis by the ribosome attenuation seen in prokaryotic-specific
-recognitions sites for restriction enzymes
-recombination of DNA ( genetic information on two chromosomes is exchanged seen in meiosis)
-regulation of gene expression
primary structure different from DNA and RNA
Uracil rather than Thymine
-2’OH on the sugar
-this makes RNA more labile/sensitive to hydrolysis, especially in an alkaline solution
-important for RNA mediate catalysis (splicing)
-Allows or additional hydrogen bonding between segment of RNA
When and how was the structure of tRNA discovered?
in the 1970s with the use of X-ray crystallography
RNA is generally single stranded name the an exception
in dsRNA genomes of some virus
RNA does not always adopt a specific 3-D structure
True
What can happen to the covalent back bond of DNA and RNA naturally?
slow nonenzymatic hydrolysis of the phosphodiester bonds
Who is most readily hydrolyzed under alkaline(basic) conditions in a test tube
RNA
What happens when a single-stranded RNA folds upon itself?
-It can form short-base paired or partially-base paired segments connected by unpaired regions
-Mostly single stranded but can be double-stranded as well ( when ds also right-handed helix known as A form)
—-you can have RNA-RNA hybrids
—-you can have RNA-DNA hybrids
What are examples of NON-watson crick base pairing in RNA?
Two Adenine coming together
Guanine and Uracil getting together
How are we able to measure DNA?
DNA can absorb UV
-Nitrogenous bases are aromatic
-bases absorb UV light near 260nm
-UV absorbance is used as. method for detecting nucleic acid using a spectrophotometer
How do you break the phosphodiester bond backbone?(DNA or RNA)
- this could be done via enzymes like restriction enzymes ( bacteria were identified with the enzymes that allow the recognition of specific sequences and cut the portion into pieces)
-Or a rare occurrence of spontaneous breaking
How do you break the duplex of DNA or RNA?
It’s like opening a zipper by breaking hydrogen bonds
-through the use of heat
-using enzymes like helicase enzymes that unwind the helix in DNA replication example.
Describe the denaturation of double-helical DNA and RNA
-dsRNA solutions are highly viscous at pH 7 and room temperature at 25 Celsius
-When these solutions are subject to high temperatures (above 80 C), viscosity decreases indicating that the DNA has undergone a physical change
* Disruption of H bonds and the base stacking
* DNA denatures when heated slowly
Tm
denaturing/melting
*pH changes can play a role as well as temperature
-the tempature where half of DNA is no longer double-stranded hence the denaturing
Explain the relationship between DNA and Tm
*Each DNA duplex has a characteristic
denaturation temperature or melting
point Tm
* The higher the CG content, the higher the Tm
* If you hold pH and ionic strength constant, you can use Tm to determine base composition
Describe the interaction of DNA with UV light when experiencing changes
- Close interaction of stacked bases in a dsDNA, has the effect of decreasing its absorption of UV light
- UV light absorption of single-stranded DNA is higher than dsDNA.
- The transition from dsDNA to ssDNA can be followed using UV
What is renaturation?
*When the temperature returns to normal,
spontaneous rewinding
* This process is called annealing(Ta): reformation of all the base pairs in the double helix
* At first, strands find each other by random collisions
* Finally, the remaining bases come together as base pairs
What is an extension?
The copying of DNA
In controlled conditions which base of complimentary bases will denature first?
AT
Why is strand separation crucial?
DNA replication, Transcription
Describe the trends of melting points seen in DNA and RNA
- DNA rich in GC versus AT has a higher melting
point - RNA-RNA has a higher melting point
- RNA-DNA is intermediate to DNA-DNA and RNA-RNA
How do we take advantage of denaturation/ renaturation?
- Nucleic acid hybridization is the formation of a stable duplex between two complementary strands of nucleic acid utilizing hydrogen bonding between base pairs.
- Hybridization requires a specific hybridization temperature (Thyb) which is 25C lower than Tm generally
- Nucleic acids from different species can form hybrids
- The closer the species, the more hybridization there will be
- Human DNA hybridizes more with mouse DNA than with yeast or bacterial DNA
T-hyb
Renaturing/annealing(Ta)
making a stable duplex between two complementary strands this form can be achieved by taking Tm and going 25 degrees Celsius below to achieve annealing
How do we detect specific DNA or RNA sequences in the model of the presence of many other sequences?
- Using hybridization with a probe
What is a probe?
- A probe is an oligonucleotide (a probe and primer/s categories
of oligos) - A probe has a specific sequence that is complementary to a specific stretch of DNA or RNA
- A probe must carry a fluorescent tag or a radioactive tag so that it can be detected
- The sequence of interest can be obtained from databases such as those found in NCBI
Describe Gel electrophoresis and how it relates to DNA.
-Agarose( derived from kelp , like jello does not disrupt base pairing
-agarose gel is placed in an electric file d
-DNA is negatively charged and travels toward the positive electrode( the backbone due to phosphate)
-Larger molecules move more slowly than bigger ones
-separate nucleic acids by size
-include a marker( set of of bands of different known sizes)
Describe how a Nucleic acid sample is taken and detected with a mixture of other DNA or RNA.
- Mixture of diffrent DNAs or RNAS
- Run on an agarose gel using electrophoresis
- Transfer the DNA to nitrocellulose membrane
- hybridize with labeled probe ( Temp of hybd)
- Use an autoradiogram to identify what the probe picked up or a fluorescent instrument
- When trying to detect DNA (southern blot) and RNA (northern blot)
What is southern blotting?
-detect DNA
-identify crime scene individual ( hair samples)
-predicting the onset of disease
What is northern blotting?
identify mRNA expression in different tissues(expression happens only on certain cells)
-is important to establish baseline controls (to distinguish negative results from bad experiments)
-sequencing can answer the same question but these techniques are still very often used
How do you calculate Tm?
Basic melting temperature Tm calculations
-sequences less than 14 nucleotides
(A+T)2 + (G+C)4
-sequences longer than 13 nucleotides
Tm=64.9+41*(G+C-16.4)/(A+T+G+C)
How do you calculate Thyb when you have Tm?
Thyb=Tm-25
Nucleotides and nucleic acids can undergo which type of transformation?
uncatalyzed chemical transformations
Can nucleotides undergo spontaneous alternations in covalent structures?
yes,
the rate of these is slow but relevant because cells have a low tolerance for genetic changes.
What is an alteration in the DNA structure that produces permanent genetic change?
Mutations
process of aging and carcinogenesis is linked to the accumulation of mutations.
Deamination
*Is a natural process
*sees the spontanoues loss of exocyclic amiono groups
*very common with Cytosine(DNA)–> Uracil
-1 in 107 Cs in 24 hours per cell
describe cytosine deamination
*repair mechanism in cells can readily recognize uracil and remove it
* If DNA contained uracil normal rather than thymine deamination of cytosine would be more problematic
*APOBEC’s
APOBEC’s
A family of proteins found in human cells that deaminate viral genomes such as HIV rendered it nonviable
-HIV has evolved a protein called Vif which binds to APOBEC and triggers degradation of this protein thus fighting the deamination
-Vif is an important target for antiviral medicine
When is DNA enzymatically methylated?
usually after DNA synthesis
Where does methylation tend to occur
As and Cs more than Gs
Where is methylation confined to
hotspots like CpG sequences
What is the function of methylation?
-methylation tends to block gene expression (transcription of DNA to RNA)
-Hypermethylation can be associated with cancer with silence genes normally controlling cell growth
How is methylation catalyzed?
enzyme called methylases do the job and they need S-adenosylmethionine as a methyl group donor
What does methylation do in bacteria?
Methtlylaiton signals ‘self” DNA ( remember restriction enzymes)
How can polymer sequences of DNA and RNA be synthesized with automated procedures involving chemical and enzymatic methods?
Solid-phase synthesis of DNA and RNA occurs in the
3’—-5’ direction
What forms of DNA and RNA can be synthesized?
ssDNA (primers are cheap and easy to manufacture)
dsDNA
ssRNA
What is a genome?
The complement of genetic information in a cell- one complete copy of the information required to specify that organism
when looking at a genome what does a molecular biologist care about most?
the function of or a few genes in the genome
About how much DNA is protein-coding?
1.5% or -21,000 genes
*if you include introns in the count about 30% of the genome contains genes (introns are components that exist in the pre-mRNA step)
How many protein-coding genes in chromosome 1?
2,000-2,100