Lent Flashcards
What was Hippocrates belief on inheritance?
Characteristics come from both parents and mixes
The ‘material’ comes from all parts of the body
When was Hippocrates around?
460-377 BC
What was Aristotle’s belief on inheritance?
Mixing of blood
Males responsible for active element that gives life to a male/female
Female provides nutrients
When was Aristotle around?
384-322BC
When was Gregor Mendel around?
1856-1870
What is a true breeding strain?
Where a parent would produce offspring with same genotype (homozygous)
What did Sutton and Boveri discover in 1903?
The chromosome structure (maternal and paternal)
Independent distribution
What did Bateson, Punnet and Saunders discover in 1905-1908?
Breeding of sweat peas didn’t show a Mendelian inheritance
What did Thomas Hunt Morgan discover in 1909?
Studied Drosophila
Suggested that genes could be found on the same chromosome
Can be linked
Chromosomes are located in the nucleus like beads on a string
What are the advantages of using Drosophila?
Short life cycle
Easy to keep in lab
Female lay many eggs
What is Intra-chromosomal recombination?
Crossing over of chromosomes, can lead to genes commonly on the same chromosome being separated
What is chromosome mapping?
Units of centimorgans
Calculated by looking at fraction of crossover
Created by Arthur Sturtevant
Why might the distances in the fractional crossover not add up?
Crossing over occurred more than once
Crossing over is less frequent near centromere
There are areas prone to crossing over (recombination hotspots)
What is incomplete dominance?
Where there is a mix in phenotype and no one clear phenotype
e.g. pink flowers instead of white or red
What example shows dominance can vary when looking at different phenotypes?
Sickle Cell anemia
Complete dominance- for clinal phenotype
Incomplete- for RBC sickling as it can occur at low [O2]
Co-dominance- of protein forms
What are sex-linked diseases?
Diseases where the likelihood of having diseases varies significantly with gender
Male are often more likely to express disease traits than female
What makes fungi good for genetic analysis?
Produce a tetrad of spores
Haploid- so no dominance relationship
Easy to grow
S.cerevisiae- can be synchronised to start at same stage in cell cycle, depending on conditions
What is Epistasy?
Where the effect of one gene masks another one. The masking one is know as epistatic
e.g. gene for presence of eye and gene for eye colour
What are 2 mechanisms of Non-mendelian inheritance?
Cytoplasmic genes
Prokaryote genetics
What are cytoplasmic genes?
Genes contained within the mitochondria or chloroplasts
What are the advantages and disadvantages of using bacteria?
Adv-Haploid, quick regeneration, small genome size
Disadv- restricted phenotype range, don’t carry out meiosis
What is the life cycle of a T4 bacteriophage?
Lytic- eventually causes cells to burst
Multiply, assemble inside cell
What evidence is there to show that viruses pass on DNA and not proteins that are pathogenic?
Radio labellilng of P (DNA) and S (Protein) into phage
Phage infects bacteria
Centrifuge
for P(DNA) shows passing on, no passing on of S (proteins)
What is complementation and non-complementation? And an example
Complementation- where mutations are found on different genes so ‘healthy’
Non-complementation- where mutations are found on the same gene, so show disease phenotype
Deafness caused by mutations on different genes
How has bacteria evolved to fight back against viruses?
CRISPR- endonuclease to cleave out viral DNA
But not cut own by methylating a base of own bacterial DNA
What are the 3 ways horizontal gene transfer can occur?
Conjugation- pili connect
Transformation- uptake of free DNA
Transduction- infection of non-pathogenic DNA from phage
Who and when first discovered gene cloning?
1970s
Cohen and Boyer
How are phages used as cloning vectors?
Restriction enzymes cleave DNA
Electrophoresis to separate
in vitro put desired into phage
Phage can insert into bacterial DNA
What is the central dogma?
The relationship which shows how information is passed on and the forms they are in. DNA, mRNA, tRNA and proteins
What is the key property of histone proteins?
Slight positive charge due to Arg and Lys residue
Can attact -ve phosphate present in backbone of DNA
How is genetic information arranged from DNA to chromosome?
DNA
Extended chromatin
Condensed chromatin
Scaffold associated chromatin
Condensed Scaffold associated chromatin
Chromosome
How are the histone octomers arranged?
4 different type of proteins, 2x of each.
H1 present act as a clamp keeping everything wound up
Contain Arg and Lys (+vely charged)
How long on average is DNA found in a cell?
2.2m
What are the 3 experiments that have been carried out to find out the nucleosome size?
1) Limited digestion- Microccocal nucleases, removes proteins, then run electrophoresis
2) Extensive digestion- Cleave at many points, run electrophoresis
3) X-ray crystallography- unable to see histone tails, so can’t see all of DNA wrapping around histone
What are the 3 stages of DNA replication?
Initiation
Elongation
Termination
What are the 7 enzymes/proteins involved in prokaryotic DNA replication?
Topoisomerase
DNA Pol I
DNA Pol III
Helicase
Primase
DNA ligase
Single stranded binding protein
What is the function of Topoisomerase?
Unwind, reduce torsional strain exerted
What is the function of the single stranded binding protein?
Protect bases that have been exposed
What is the function of DNA Pol I?
RNA primer removal
Proof reading
What is the function of DNA Polll?
Synthesis 5’ to 3’
Exonuclease for proofreading
What are the 5 subunit of DNA Pol III and their function?
Alpha- synthesis
Beta - sliding clamp
Tao- dimerise alpha subunits
Epsilon & Theta- exonuclease
What does the formation of Okazaki fragments mean?
DNA replication is discontinuous on the lagging strand
How were Okazaki fragments discovered?
Pulse chase experiment
thymine Radiolabelling H added
Halted and centrifuged at different time
Shows presence of short DNA strands
Which then disappear and only long strands present
What is the trombone model?
Model for how DNA Pol III reads the DNA strand
Created by Alberts
How do DNA Pol I and DNA ligase work together?
DNA Pol I- binds, removes primer, synthesis new DNA, leaves nick
DNA ligase- recognizes nick, forms a new bond
What happens in the termination stage of circular DNA?
Form catennes, new loops still linked
Require Topoisomerase IV- breaks double bond, then reseals it
What are the similarities between eukaryotic and prokaryotic DNA replication?
1) contain Origin elements
2)Bi-directional
3) Synthesis 5’-3’
4) Semi-conservative
5) Semi-discontinuous
6) Multi-protein nature
What are the difference between eukaryotic and prokaryotic DNA replication?
1) Eukaryotic has many origin elements
2) Replication occurs at defined point in cell cycle
3) DNA polymerases are different
4) RNA primer removal is different
5) End replication problem (linear DNA)
Why does eukaryotic DNA replication contain may origin elements?
Long DNA
Polymerases are slow
Why does eukaryotic DNA replication occur at a specific point in the cell cycle?
Needs to be controlled
Only occurs in S phase
Controlled by the formation of Pre replication complex
Helicase requires activation
What are the 3 different polymerases in eukaryotic DNA replication?
DNA Pol alpha- synthesises primers
DNA Pol delta- synthesises lagging strand
DNA Pol epsilon- syntehsises leading strand
How does RNA primer removal work in eukaryotic DNA replication?
FEN-1 instead of DNA Pol I
Recognises primer and cleaves
How does eukaryotic DNA replication overcome the end replication problem?
Telomerases- has integral RNA seq, uses reverse transcriptase
Synthesises a sequence of bases to add on to the end to stop the continual shortening deleting key bases.
How can DNA damage occur?
UV light
Alkylation
Ionisation
What are the 4 DNA repair mechanisms?
1) Mismatch repair
2) Photoreactivation (prokaryotes)
3) Nucleotide excision repair
4) Base Excision repair
What does mismatch repair work, and how?
Repairs wrong base pairing
Recruits MutL, H and S to act as exonucleases
Then uses DNA Pol III and DNA ligase to repair
How does photoreactivation work?
Photolyases
Pyrimidine separation, from dimer formed by UV
Absorbs light , moves e- around
What is nucleotide excision repair?
Removal of pyrimidine dimer (like in photoreactivation)
1) Recognition of abnormality by damage recognition complex
2) Unwinding by helicase
3) Cleaving of abnormality by exonuclease
Uses Uvr A, B and C along with DNA Pol I
What is Base excision repair?
Swaps a single base
Damage recognised by a glycosylase enzyme
Glycosylase cleaves
Endonuclease cleaves the rest
DNA Pol and ligase fix
What are the differences between transcription and DNA replication?
Transcription- RNA polymerase, no primer needed, produces one strand, mRNA strand
DNA rep- DNA polymerases, primers needed, produces 2 strands, DNA strands
What are the 2 components for Bacterial transcription?
Sigma- specificity
Core factor- for elongation
Where does transcription start? Where are the promoters usually located?
Start at TSS (transcription start site)
Promoters at -10 and -35
What are the 2 mechanisms of transcription termination in bacteria?
Rho dependent- Rho causes dissociation
Rho independent- RNA forms a stem loop due to GCs and then U present, to weaken interaction
What are the differences in transcription in bacteria and eukaryotes?
Different RNA polymerases
mRNA later processed before exported out of nucleus
TFs present
Impact of chromatin (DNA + proteins)
What are the 3 types of RNA polymerases and what do they transcribe?
RNA Pol I- rRNA
RNA Pol II- mRNA
RNA Pol III- tRNA
What are 3 pre-mRNA processes that need to occur before exporting the mRNA?
5’ capping- protect from degradation, promotes splicing, recruits ribosome
Poly(A) tail- promote export, efficient translation
Splicing- remove introns, leave useful coding exons
What enzyme is involved in splicing?
Spliceosome- type of ribozyme
What is the genomic library?
Collection of clones of DNA fragments representing entire genome of an organism
What are ways DNA can be analysed?
Restriction Enzyme Mapping
Southern Blotting (hybridisation, autoradiography)
What polymerase is often used in PCR and why?
Taq Polymerase
Can withstand high temperatures
What is Sanger Sequencing?
uses ddNTPs- which change a OH on C3 to H, so can no longer bond
Different ddNTPs for the 4 bases
All used and then fluorescent label to then read off the order of bases, as the strands will be of different lengths
What is the timeline for the human genome project?
1990s Began
1997 Freely accessible
2003 Sequencing complete
2006 Genome finished (not introns)
2022 No gaps 99.99% accurate
What are the ethical issues with sequencing genomes?
Insurance companies discriminating
Lose privacy
Cost - wealth divide
Why is annotating the genome difficult?
Contains introns and exons, which are spliced and so difficult to analyse what codes for what
What is G-banding and what can it be used for?
Dyeing with Giemsa dye
Different dying patterns, to analyse which chromosome it is
Used to show translocation
What are autonomously replicating seqences (ARS)?
Area on the chromosome which contain the ORC, to begin DNA replication
What are the kinetochores?
Protein complex that attaches to centromere of chromosome and spindle fibres, during mitosis
What are transposable elements and the 2 types?
Sequences of bases/ genes that move around in the chromosome
Can insert themselves into genes and cause mutations/diseases
DNA transpons (cut-paste) relocated
Retrotransposons (copy-paste) transcribed to RNA, reversed back to DNA and integrated back in
What percent of the genome is protein coding?
1.5%
What are LINEs? + Medical example of its effect
Long Interspersed Nuclear Elements
Retrotransposons, replicate and insert themselves into genome
LINE 1 most common and can insert into a gene leading to hemophilia, Hunter Syndrome, cancer, neurological disorders (schizophrenia)
What is a pseudogene?
sequence of DNA which could be a gene, however due to mutations is no longer functioning
What are simple sequence repeats and their use?
SSRs/ microsatellites/ STRs
Short stretches of repeating DNA
Use to study genetic diversity, evolutionary relationships, forensics
Expansion of STRs can lead to Huntingdon’s disease
What is aneuploidy?
Abnormal number of chromosomes
How does Down Syndrome occur?
Three chromosomes on 21
What does the Y factor contain, that the X chromosome doesn’t?
Testes determining factor
What 2 problems arise from the Y chromosome?
Y chromosome shorter, for recombination PAR
Dosage compensation- technically aneuploidy, so in humans inactivate X chromosome
What are examples of recessive X- linked disease?
Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy DMD
Haemophilia
Colour Blindness
What are some examples of autosomal recessive diseases?
Sickle cell Anaemia
Spinal Muscular Atrophy
Cystic Fibrosis