Gene II

Question 1

What is a gene? (5)

Answer 1

• the basic unit of genetic information
• ds DNA in all cells and some viruses; ss DNA, ss & ds RNA in other viruses
• also defined as the nucleic acid sequence that codes for a specific polypeptide (structural gene), tRNA (transfer RNA gene) or rRNA (ribosomal RNA gene)
• linear sequence of nucleotides with a fixed start point and end point
• Gene (DNA or RNA) → RNA (mRNA, tRNA, rRNA) → polypeptide (protein)

Question 2

what are coding sequences? describe specifically for proks and euks

Answer 2

• nucleotide sequence in a gene that have the information for amino acid placement in a polypeptide
• Prokaryotes – entire gene is continuous coding sequence (Slide 5)
• Eukaryotes – genes are split into coding and non coding regions (Slide 6)