Exam II Flashcards
What are the steps of gene cloning?
- Isolation of plasmid DNA and DNA containing gene of interest
- Gene inserted into plasmid
- Plasmid put into bacterial cell
- Cells cloned with gene of interest
- Identification of desired clone
What was our gene of interest that we cloned using TOPO?
adhP
What does the gene adhP encode for?
Alcohol dehydrogenase
What method is used to get the plasmid back into a host cell?
Transformation
What is the plasmid we used in lab called?
pET-101D/TOPO
How will we purifiy our cloned proteins in lab?
Affinity Chromatography
What does PCR stand for?
polymerase chain reaction
What are two ways cloning can be achieved?
- take a small portion of organisms and allowing it to grow into a full organism (carrot)
- Embryo Splitting
What is a fundamental process of copying the DNA which occurs in all living organisms and is the basis for biological inheritance?
DNA replication
What is the difference between DNA and RNA?
- DNA is double stranded, with two anti-parallel strands
2. RNA is a single strand and can form secondary and tertiary structures (tRNA)
What are the components of a nucleotide?
Base
Sugar
Phosphate
The base can either be a purine or a what?
pyrimidine
Adenine and guanine are what type of base?
purine
Thymine/Uracil and cytosine are what type of base?
pyrimidine
Guanine and cytosine form how many hydrogen bonds?
3
Thymine/Uracil and adenine form how many hydrogen bonds?
2
The side chain group on the 2’ Carbon on DNA is what?
H
The side chain group on the 2’ Carbon on RNA is what?
OH
What group is on the 3’ Carbon for both RNA and DNA?
OH
The phosphate backbone attaches to which carbons of both DNA and RNA?
5’
3’
What is ligation?
When a phosphate group attaches to the 3’ or 5’ carbon of a sugar
What serves as the template for the reproduction of the complementary strand?
Each strand of the original double stranded DNA molecule
What are produced from a single double stranded DNA molecule?
Two identical DNA molecules
Which strand is read 3’ to 5’ by the DNA polymerase and produces a continuously growing strand?
Leading strand
Which strand is read from 3’ to 5’ but produces short strands that must be linked together?
Lagging Strand
What is located at the replication fork and separates the lagging and leading strands?
Helicase
Who discovered DNA polymerase in 1956?
Arthur Kornberg (Nobel Prize in 1959)
What can only add nucleotides to the 3’ end of the primer- extending the chain in the 5’ to 3’ direction?
DNA polymerase
What is the error rate of DNA polymerase?
1 in every billion base pair added
What are they short strands that are formed from the lagging strand called?
Okazaki fragments
PCR is a process that imitates what?
the natural DNA replication
The membranes of bacterial cells are made up of what?
lipids
The cell walls of bacterial cells are made up of what?
sugars
What kind of bacteria has both an inner and outer cell wall?
Gram (-) Bacteria
Gram positive bacteria have a thick layer of what?
peptidoglycan
Gram negative bacteria have what kind of peptidoglycan layer?
thin
What are plasmids?
Non-chromosomal DNA
Does the replication of plasmids depend on the replication of the chromosome?
No
Are there many copies of plasmids within a cell?
Yes
What are the steps of genomic DNA purification?
- Lyse all cells
- Denature proteins
- Inactivate endogenous nucleases
- Isolate/ Purify genomic DNA
What does Tide Free 2X laundry detergent contain?
proteases
lipases
glycolytic enzymes
What is the function of the proteases in Tide?
degrades proteins
What is the function of the lipases in Tide?
cleaves fat/lipids
What is the function of the glycolytic enzymes in Tide?
degrade sugar
What has limited solubility in water; thus forms a separate organic phase from the aqueous phase?
n-butonal
What do you do to separate the cell debris, organic phase, and inorganic phase?
Spin the sample
Which phase is removed and transferred to a new tube after the n-butanol is added and the tube is spun?
The aqueous phase (inorganic)
Which phase will the DNA and RNA go to and why?
aqueous (inorganic). They are starches
Why do you add 2-propanol to the aqueous layer?
To precipitate the genomic DNA and RNA
Why do you wash with 70% ethanol?
To remove salt contamination
why is it crucial that you dry out the ethanol before re-dissolving the DNA pellet back in water?
maintains the activity of enzymes used further down in the protocol.
What is added to remove RNA contamination?
RNase A (incubate at 60 C)
What are the components of PCR?
two primer strands (forward and reverse) dNTPs template DNA appropriate buffer DNA polymerase
Who invented PCR?
Kary Mullis (nobel Prize 1993)
What are other names for the coding strand?
sense strand
positive strand
What are other names for the complementary strand?
anti-sense strand
negative strand
What should be the length of the primers?
20 to 30 nucleotides long
What is the denaturation step of PCR?
DNA is heated to separate strands 95 C
What is the annealing step of PCR?
DNA strands are cooled to allow them to anneal with the primers (52-65 C)
What is the extension step of PCR?
Temperature is increased to ~72 C and DNA Polymerase completes the DNA strand
What direction does synthesis/replication occur?
5’ to 3’
How many cycles can a PCR reaction run for?
25-35 cycles
A PCR reaction with N cycles will give how many DNA molecules?
2^N
What has the same sequence as the “coding” strand and anneals with the complement strand?
FWD primer
What has the same sequence as the complement strand and anneals with the coding strand?
REV primer
What determines the specificity and significantly affects the ability for the primer to anneal to the template?
primer length
If the primer is too short what occurs?
low specificity, resulting in non-specific amplification
If the primer is too long what occurs?
decreases the template-binding efficiency at normal annealing temperatures due to the higher probability of forming secondary structures such as hairpins
What are some examples of secondary structures?
hairpins
self-Dimer
Dimer
How do you determine the annealing temperature?
Should be a few degrees lower than the melting temperatures of the primers which is based on the number of GC and AT pairs
What is the formula to estimate the Tm?
Tm = 4 (G+C) + 2 (A+T) units are in degrees Celsius
What is a device that controls incubation temperatures and times?
Thermal Cycler
For how long is the denaturing step?
15 to 30 seconds
How long is the elongation step?
1 to 2 min for every 1000 base pairs
1 min/kb at 68 to 74 C is optimal
How long is the elongation step?
5 to 10 min at 68 to 72 C
At what temperature should you store the genes?
4 C
When does the product that consists only of the desired regions of DNA appear?
3rd cycle
Each step is what, since two strands coming from the newly synthesized DNA can act as a template for the next reaction?
exponential
Does each strand need one primer, with opposite polarity?
Yes
What should be the ratio of absorption at 260 and absorption at 280 for DNA and proteins?
DNA 2
protein 0.57
What is the extension coefficient for ds DNA at 260nm?
50 micrograms/mL
What is the extension coefficient for ssDNA at 260 nm?
33 micrograms/mL
How long is the annealing step?
15 to 30 seconds
How do you calculate the number of DNA copies that span the size between the primers after n cycles of PCR?
2^n - (n*2)
What matrix did we use in the gel electrophoresis?
0.8% agarose
Agarose gel electrophoresis separates molecules based on what?
size, shape, and charge
What charge does DNA have?
negative
Do smaller or larger molecules move faster in gel electrophoresis?
smaller
negatively charge DNA moves toward what?
the anode
molecular size markers contain what?
different DNA fragments of known size
What buffer is usually used in electrophoresis?
Tris-acetate-EDTA (TAE)
The loading buffer contains what which allows the sample to fall into the sample wells?
something dense like glycerol
The loading buffer also contains this allowing for the visual monitoring or how far the electrophoresis has proceeded?
one or two tracking dyes
How do you pour a gel?
weigh 0.8% agarose add electrophresis buffer microwave until completely melted cool to 60 C add fluorescent stain pour into casting tray containing comb allow to solidify
DNA will migrate toward the positive what?
electrode (anode)
What is intercalating mean?
inserts between the bases of DNA
what kind of dye is used?
fluorescent intercalating
What are some examples of the dye used?
SYBR safe or Ethidium Bromide
SYBR safe is how many times less toxic than Ethidium Bromide?
4 - 5 times
Do supercoiled (uncut), relaxed circular form, or linearized forms of plasmids travel the fastest?
supercoiled
Which form of plasmid travels the slowest?
relaxed circular form
What migrate through agarose gels with mobility that is inversely proportional to the log base 10 of their molecular weight?
linear DNA
relative mobility = 1/(log MW)
Typically the size of DNA bands are reported as the number of what?
base pairs or kilo base pairs
Which resolves better at low % gel, larger or smaller DNA?
larger 0.7%
Which resolves better at in 1.5% agarose, larger or smaller DNA?
smaller
What migrate proportionally faster as the voltage applied to a gel is increased?
larger DNA fragments
What is the best resolution of fragments that are greater than 2 kb?
5 V/cm
What functions do the electrophoresis buffer have?
establish pH
provide ions to support conductivity
maintain DNA
What are the potential reasons that a PCR does not work?
1 old/dead polymerase
2 wrong/degraded primers
3 too high concentration of primers or templates
4 wrong annealing temperature
5 ethanol (kills DNA polymerase) contamination of template DNA
annealing temperatures that are too low can result in what?
non specific priming which can lead to smears in electrophoresis
What is the start codon for E.coli?
ATG
What are the stop codons?
TAA, TAG, and TGA
What two amino acids have only one codon?
Met (ATG) and Trp (TGG)
Where can you retrieve the gene sequence?
NCBI (National Center for Biotechnology Information)
What is an accession number?
A unique identification number of a sequence. It is a string of letters and/or numbers that corresponds to a molecular sequence (protein or gen sequence)
What button to you select to retrieve the gene sequence?
FASTA
What is a short synthetic oligonucleotide designed to have a sequence which is the reverse complement of a region of template or target DNA?
a primer
The primer must have what to prevent fraying
A GC clamp
What is the temperature at which one half of the DNA duplex is a stable double helix, while the other half has been separated to single strand molecules?
Melting temperature
What is the optimum difference in the melting temperature of primers?
< 5 C (actually 3-5)
IDT has what tool to analyze primer?
Oligo analyzer
In addition to the melting temperature what else should be analzyed?
whether secondary structures are made.