Gene expression Flashcards
What does expression of genes depend on?
Tissue, developmental stage and intra/extracellular signals
What genes are always expressed at constant levels?
Housekeeping genes
What are 2 types of inducible genes?
Switched on in specific cell types (dependent on TFs)
Switched on in response to environmental cues
What does gene expression regulate (binding)?
Ability of RNA polymerase to bind promoter
How is bacterial transcription initiated?
Binding of sigma factor to promoter, enable RNA polymerase to bind and form preinitiiation complex.
What determines whether sigma factors binds to prokaryotic promoter
Complementary of promoter region
Type of sigma factor
Repressor/activator protein
How is bacterial DNA organised?
Operons - set of genes (for similar function) under control of one promoter
What is the benefit to having no operons in eukaryotic DNA?
Genes encoding proteins for different steps in a pathway have their own promoter so expression can be modulated separately
Protective, one mutation unlikely to damage entire process
What do operons contain?
Regulatory DNA sequences that are binding sites for regulatory proteins to control how much the operon is transcribed
What do regulatory proteins do in prokaryotic transcription?
Repressors bind to operators, reducing transcription
Activators bind to DNA binding site and increases transcription
Does prokaryotic DNA contain introns and exons?
No
How can expression be altered based on modifications to chromatin, what part of chromatin is affected?
Chemical modifications to N terminal histone tails in nucleosomes by activators/repressors to change accessibility of TFs to DNA
What happens in DNA methylation, what’s the result?
Methyltransferase converts cytosine to 5 cytosine
Methyl group disrupts binding of protiens needed for transcription
Chromatin becomes more compact and less accessible
How are TSG often silenced?
Hypermethylation
What is the difference between constituitively heterchromatic and facultative heterochromatic?
Constitutive: permanent
Faculative: can be converted to euchromatic
Which have active genes heterochromatin or euchromatin?
Euchromatin
Describe structure of chromatin in heterochromatin
Chromatin more condensed due to methylation
What does methylation of chromatin also facilitate?
Binding of additional proteins
What is constitutively heterochromatic?
Centromeres and telomeres (contain many tandem repeats)
Example of facultative heterochromatin, how is it altered?
Inactive X chromosome inactivated to become heterochromatic state (barr body) by recruiting enzymes to modifty histones
What is acetylated in gene expression?
Lysine residues of histone tails
How does acetylation affect gene expression? (mechanism)
Neutralise + charge of histone tail so -ve charged DNA less tightly wrapped around histone /nucleosome and more accessible
What does acetylation recruit?
Chromatin remodelling complexes - shift nucleosomes and induce chromatin conformational change
TATA box binding protein associated factors: affecting rate of transcription
How can respositioning nucleosome affect gene expression?
Nucleosome respositioned to make promoter more accessible
Compare active DNA with less active DNA (NUCLEOSOMES) how can you prove this?
Contains fewer nucleosomes
More susceptible to digestion by DNase
Where are housekeeping genes and relatively rarely expression genes placed in relation to nucleosomes?
Housekeeping genes between
Rarely expressed genes in between
Example of gene that can’t be transcribed as DNA is bound to nuclear lamina
Hox genes
What does RNA polymerase required to associate with promoter sequence?
General transcription factor