Lecture 6 - Gene Expression Flashcards
What type of gene control is present in prokaryotes?
Lac and Trp operons
What 6 kinds of gene control mechanisms are present in eukaryotes?
- Chromatin remodeling and position effect variegation
- Gene silencing (DNA methylation)
- Dosage Compensation
- Alternative mRNA splicing
- mRNA stability
- Regulatory RNAs (si and miRNAs)
What is an operon?
set of genes the share some sort of common function
What is the operator?
site on DNA where repressor binds - btw promoter and said genes
What is a repressor?
a regulator protein that represses transcription
What is negative control and what are the two types?
Repressors turn off transcription - inducible and repressible expression
What happens in inducible expression?
Basically no transcription is happening as their is a repressor bound to the operator. Inducer leads repressor to fall off and now transcription can occur. Usually apart of catabolic pathways (lac operons)
What is repressible expression?
So the transcription is going on. The way it stops is when the corepressor binds to repressor which then binds to operator. Usually is anabolic (trp operon)
What are the two effector molecules?
inducer or corepressor
What is the corepressor in Trp Operon?
Tryptophan. Genes here make this amino acid. Example of repressible control.
What happens in positive regulation?
The bound activator promotes transcription.
How many structural genes does the lac operon encode?
3
What does lac Z do?
cleaves lactose disaccharides into monosaccharides to begin their metabolism - glucose to galactose
What does lacY do?
transport protein (permease) gets lactose into the cell
What does lacA do
don’t know its full importance yet
What is gene I and its structure?
lac repressor that binds to operator - acts as a tetramer (4 same polypeptide chains that are noncovalently linked)
What is the inducer in lac operon?
Allolactose (sensor of lactose) - binds to repressor which releases from operator so transcription can start
How does glucose prevent expression of lac operon?
As it is the preferred carbon (energy) source for ecoli it will use that over lactose. So you need lactose and no glucose
What is catabolite repression?
when glucose is present it will act as a preventer of induction of lac operon - works by having secondary regulator protein CAP (an activator)
What does CAP do?
in response to cAMP it will act as an activator w lactose (inducer) to promote induction
What two things does the promoter site have?
CAP and RNA polymerase binding sites