Week 2- Microbial Genetics 2 Flashcards
What is gene transfer?
Naturally occurring mechanisms for the exchange of genetic information
What are the types of gene transfer?
- Vertical gene transfer
- horizontal/lateral transfer
When people have sex and have a child, what sort of gene transfer is that?
Vertical gene transfer
What is vertical gene transfer?
Genomic material transferred from a non-parent organism to another organism
What kind of gene transfer is mitosis/meiosis?
Vertical gene transfer
What is horizontal gene transfer?
Genomic material transferrred between non-parent organisms
List and describe the 3 main mechanisms of horizontal gene transfer
Conjugation- prokaryotes (bacteria and Archea)
Transduction-prokaryotes(bacteria and Archea)
Transformation- both prokaryotes and eukaryotes
What methods of gene transfer do bacteria and Archea?
Conjugation and transduction
What methods of gene transfer are employed by prokaryotes and eukaryotes?
Transformation
What is conjugation?
Genetic material transferred from one cell to another using a physical link known as the “sex “pili
-observed only in prokaryotes
What is transformation?
When DNA is taken up from the environment and incorporated into the genome of the recipient
What is transduction?
A bacteriophage is used to transfer information from one organism to another
What are the limitations of horizontal gene transfer?
Fragments must be short, 10,000 base pairs max and only certain cells are competent enough for transformation
How can transformation trigger recombination in the recipient cell?
If there are similarities in regions between host and foreign DNA, recombination might occur
Explain transformation in detail
- dead bacteria release their fragmented genome which may be picked up by other bacteria in the environment
- these fragments must be short for it to be picked up by the host cell (approx. 10,000 bp)
- direct uptake of naked dsDNA (ssDNA) fragments which are converts to ssDNA before they recombine with the host’s genome
What are the requirements of recombination ?
- Bacterial recombination genes (recA, B and C)
- homology between the DNA involved
How was transformation first observed in experimentation ?
Experiment by Frederick Griffith in 1928( Streptococcus pnuemoniae)
What were the findings of Frederick Griffith?
- proved that information transfer occurred of some kind between Streptococcus pneumonia cells
- suggested proteins being responsible for this “transformation “
Summarize the details of Frederick Griffith
- In 1928, experiment by Frederick Griffith
- Killed pathogenic strains release Nucleic acid
- This DNA can be taken up live non-pathogenic strains
- As a result they will convert the non-pathogenic strains into pathogenic strains that are capable of infecting mice
What does natural competence for transformation entail?
Natural competence: bacteria that can naturally take up exogenous DNA
-contains permeable membrane/transport membrane protein
What is induced incompetence?
-Not naturally transformable species can be manipulated to become “competent” and able to accept foreign DNA
E.g. E. Coli could be made competent after Ca+
Give a summation about how transformation occurs
- Competent receptor site binds to extracellular DNA
- DNA enters the cell, and the strands separate
- DNA separates into single strands and one strand recombined to the host chromosome and transforms the cell
4 the other strand becomes degraded
- Heteroduplex is formed as it contains host DNA and transforming DNA
- After one replication and it is incorporated into the host and it forms one cell that is transformed and one cell that is transformed
In a heteroduplex, which is the transformed DNA?
The outer edge has the transformed DNA
What are the 2 types of pili?
Fimbria- attachment pili
Sex pili
What is the function of the sex pili?
Involved in genetic transfer between bacterial cells(conjugation)
Describe the sex pili
Relatively long and few in numbers(1-6 per cell)
How was conjugation first observed?
By Joshua Ledeberg and Edward Tatum in 1946
What are auxotrophs?
Organisms that need nutrients to grow