Week 6 Flashcards
What are the key features of prokaryotic DNA?
Very economical
Compact Organisation
Operon structure
Lack of repeat elements
Strong correlation between genome size and gene number
What are the key features of eukaryotic DNA?
Large
Large number of non-coding introns (25% of DNA in humans)
Small number of exons (1.5% in humans)
Large number of repetitive elements
Poor correlation between genome size and protein coding gene numbers
Why is there a strong correlation between genome size and number of genes in prokaryotes?
There are very few empty regions which are quite small. Nearly all space is occupied by a gene. There is linear relationship between genome size and number of genes
What is contained within eukaryoic genomes?
Large proportion of transposable elements
Large proportion of other repetitive elements
Exons in genes represent a small proportion of the genome
What are the 3 main regions of eukaryotic chromosome?
Telomeres
Long/Short arm
Centromere
What type of ploid are most eukaryotes?
They are diploid - two sets of chromosomes
What are polyploid organisms?
They have more than 2 sets of chromosomes (can be specified further eg tetraploid- 4)
How many angiosperms are polyploid?
70%
Where does polyploid comes from?
From a process of whole genome duplication
What are examples of animal polyploidy?
Salmon 4x
Frogs 4x
What are examples of crop polyploidy?
Potato 4x
Strawberry 8x
Rice 12x
Wheat either 6x or 4x
What is autopolyploidy?
Polyploids with multiple chromosome sets derived from within a single species often a result of meiotic error where gametes fail to reduce
What is the process of autopolyploidy?
A karyotype of parent species wull undergo meiotic error. This means the gametes produced will have full number chromosomes rather than half. If the gamete undergoes self-fertilisation then it will form a 4n zygote.
What is allopolyploidy?
Polyploids result from a hybridisation event
These end up with two sub-genomes one from each of the progenitor species
Potential way for new species to arise
What is the process of allopolyploidy?
One organism will undergo miotic error to form unreduced gamete. Then the unreduced gamete is involved with a hybridisation event. The other species chromosome often only has a single copy. This odd numbered animal will reduce with a progenitor species so all chromosomes from orginal species are 2n. This produces a viable offspring that will be a hybrid of the 2.
What is the 2R hypothesis?
it proposes that the early vertebrate lineage underwent two complete genome duplications
1R- When Jawed fish broke off from Jawless vertebrates
2R- When bony jawed vertebrates broke off from cartiliagonous fish
What is FSGD?
Fish Specific Genome Duplication otherwise called the 3R hypothesis in teleosts (type of bony fish)
What is the benefit of genome duplication events?
Both veterbrates and teleost’s have demonstrated huge adaptive radiations which may be linked to genome duplication
What happens when an animal undergoes genome duplication?
Huge selective pressure to rediploidise. There are scars of the genome duplication with pseudogenes, which mirror genes but dont have a promoter.
What is duplication chromosomal rearrangement?
Increase in copy number of a chromosomal region (segmental) or single gene (local)
What is inversion chromosomal rearrangement?
Chromosomal segment is inverted due to breakage and rejoining
What is translocational chromosomal rearrangement?
A mutation causing one portion of the chromosome to move to a different part of the chromosome or onto a new chromosome (reciprocal, non reciprocal and Robertsonian/whole chromosome (2 chromosomes joined together))
What is transposition chromosomal rearrangement?
Movement of a short DNA segment around the genome
What are the uses comparative genomics?
Help identify:
Conserved protein coding regions
Conserved transciption control sequences
Mechanisms of chromosomal evolution
What are the similarities between mice and humans genomes?
Almost all genes found in one species is found in another
Protein coding regions of the mouse and human genomes are 85% identical
Around 217 conserved synthetic blocks have been found between human and mouse genomes
What is the difference between humans and great apes with chromome count?
Humans have 2n of 46
Great apes have 2n of 48
Why do humans have 2 fewer chromosomes than apes?
Chromosome 2 in humans formed as a result of fusion of two smaller chromosomes - Chimp chromosome 12 and 13
What is a difference on chromosome 3 between humans and Orangutan homologue?
There is chromosomal inversion in the Orangutan homologue of chromosome 3
How long is Human DNA?
Each diploid human cell contains around 2m of DNA
Human body contains roughly 50 trillion cells- enough to go from sun to earth 300x
How is DNA packaged?
DNA is complexed with positively charged histone proteins to generate chromatin
Histone sequences are highly conserved in eukaryote genomes
What are the two types of chromatin?
Heterochromatin is tightly packed - often where noncoding regions are
Euchromatin is more loosely packed - This allows for transcription to happen
What marks heterochromatin?
They are marked by histone-modifying enzymes
What is the structure of human centromere?
Highly repetitive
AT rich alpha satelite monomers (171 bps)
Satellites are tandemly repeated into high order repeats
Kinetochores assemble during cell division to link centromere to spindle fibres
Pericentric heterochromatin forms around centromere making genome silent compartments
What is the role of telomeres?
Essential for maintenance of linear chromosomes
In the abscence of telomeres chromosomes would shorten each replication cycle
Prevent DNA repair systems from mistaking end of chromosome for a double stranded break
What is the length of telomeres?
They are comprised of 250-1500 TTAGGG repeats
Why would human chromosome shorten each time without telomeres?
DNA polymerase cannot construct the 3’ end of new DNA strand
What are included as Repetitive elements?
Structural repeats (centromeres, telomeres etc)
Pseudogenes
Simple sequence repeats/ microsatellites (2-5bps in length)
Transposable elements (c.45% of human genome, though small proportion are active (less than 0.05%)
Who identified Jumping genes?
Barbara McClintock
What was the work of Barbara McClintock?
Indentified two dominant genetic loci names Dissociation and Activator
She noticed that Dissociation caused chromosomes to break and had effects on neighboring genes when in the prescence of Activator
She noticed that both loci could change position on chromosomes
That Activator controlled the transpostion of Dissociation and that when Dissociation was moved the chromosome broke
How did Barbara McClintock indentify Jumping genes?
She observed the effects of their movement through changing colour patterns in maize kernals over generations and controlled crosses
What was the name of Jumping genes that McClintock observed?
McClintock observe was Type II transposon
What are type 2 transposons?
These use a “cut and paste” mechanism to get around
Produce mutations and target sequence duplications when inserted into genes
These are able to replicate during S phase of the cell cycle when a donor site has been replicated but the target has not
What are type 1 transposons?
They use a “copy and paste” mechansism of replication
These have a similar characteristic as reteroviruses such as HIV
Produce mutations when they inset into genes
What caused humans and apes to lose their tail?
They lost their tale due to an insertion of an Alu element (transposible element) into the intron of TBXT gene lead to homonid specific alternative splicing event
How many protein coding genes are their in humans?
20,000 to 25,000
Around 100,000 predicted
These genes generate the proteome which is more complex than lower eukaryotes