Molecular Biology of the Gene Name Chapter 12
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
CHAPTER 10: Molecular Biology of the Gene Name ______________ Chapter 12: Biotechnology Introduction A. Viruses infect organisms by 1. binding to receptors on a host’s target cell & injecting viral genetic material into the cell 2. hijacking the host cell’s own molecules and organelles to produce new copies of the virus. B. The host cell is destroyed, and newly replicated viruses are released to continue the infection. C. Viruses are not generally considered alive because they are not cellular and cannot reproduce on their own. D. Because viruses have much less complex structures than cells, they are relatively easy to study at the molecular level. The Structure of the Genetic Material 10.1 SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY: Experiments showed that DNA is the genetic material 1. Until the 1940s, the case for proteins serving as the genetic material was stronger than the case for DNA. a. Proteins are made from 20 different amino acids b. DNA was known to be made from just four kinds of nucleotides. 2. Studies of bacteria and viruses ushered in the field of molecular biology, the study of heredity at the molecular level, and revealed the role of DNA in heredity. 3. In 1928, Frederick Griffith discovered that a “transforming factor” could be transferred into a bacterial cell. He found that a. when he exposed heat-killed pathogenic bacteria to harmless bacteria, some harmless bacteria were converted to disease-causing bacteria and b. the disease-causing characteristic was inherited by descendants of the transformed cells. 4. In 1952, Alfred Hershey and Martha Chase used bacteriophages to show that DNA is the genetic ma- terial of T2, a virus that infects the bacterium Escherichia coli (E. coli). a. Bacteriophages (or phages for short) are viruses that infect bacterial cells. b. Phages were labeled with radioactive sulfur to detect proteins or radioactive phosphorus to detect DNA. c. Bacteria were infected with either type of labeled phage to determine which substance was injected into cells and which remained outside the infected cell. d. The sulfur-labeled protein stayed with the phages outside the bacterial cell, while the phosphorus- labeled DNA was detected inside cells. e. Cells with phosphorus-labeled DNA produced new bacteriophages with radioactivity in DNA but not in protein. 10.2 DNA and RNA are polymers of nucleotides 1. DNA and RNA are nucleic acids. 2. One of the two strands of DNA is a DNA polynucleotide, a nucleotide polymer (chain). 3. A nucleotide is composed of a nitrogenous base, five-carbon sugar, and phosphate group. a. The nitrogen bases are grouped according to their shape as either pyrimidines or purines. Nucleotides 2 4. The nucleotides are joined to one another by a sugar-phosphate backbone. Deoxyribose (Found in DNA) Ribose (Found in RNA) Phosphate Ester Bond 3 5. Each type of DNA nucleotide has a different nitrogen-containing base: a. adenine (A), cytosine (C), thymine (T), and guanine (G). 6. RNA (ribonucleic acid) is unlike DNA in that it uses the sugar ribose (instead of deoxyribose in DNA) and RNA has the nitrogenous base uracil (U) instead of thymine. 7. Hydrogen Bonds- weak bond between covalently bonded hydrogen and an atom with an unshared pair of electrons a. Hydrogen acts (+) while oxygen or nitrogen acts (-) b. Adenine and Thymine have 2 hydrogen bonds; Cytosine and guanine have 3 hydrogen bonds Label the following: cytosine, guanine, adenine, thymine, phosphate, phosphodiester bond, hy- drogen bond, 3’ end, 5’ end, deoxyribose 10.3 DNA is a double-stranded helix 1. In 1952, after the Hershey-Chase experiment demonstrated that the genetic material was most likely DNA, a race was on to describe the structure of DNA and explain how the structure and properties of DNA can account for its role in heredity. 2. In 1953, James D. Watson and Francis Crick deduced the secondary structure of DNA, using a. X-ray crystallography data of DNA from the work of Rosalind Franklin and Maurice Wilkins b. Erwin Chargaff’s observation that in DNA the amount of adenine was equal to the amount of thy- mine and the amount of guanine was equal to that of cytosine. %A=%T and %G=%C 3. Watson and Crick reported that DNA consisted of two polynucleotide strands wrapped into a double helix. 4 a. The sugar-phosphate backbone is on the outside. b. The nitrogenous bases are perpendicular to the backbone in the interior. c. Specific pairs of bases give the helix a uniform shape. 4. In 1962, the Nobel Prize was awarded to a. James D. Watson, Francis Crick, and Maurice Wilkins. b. Rosalind Franklin probably would have received the prize as well but for her death from cancer in 1958. Nobel Prizes are never awarded posthumously. 5. The Watson-Crick model gave new meaning to the words genes and chromosomes. The genetic in- formation in a chromosome is encoded in the nucleotide sequence of DNA. DNA Replication 10.4 DNA replication depends on specific base pairing 1. In their description of the structure of DNA, Watson and Crick noted that the structure of DNA sug- gests a possible copying mechanism. 2. DNA replication follows a semiconservative model. a. The two DNA strands separate. b. Each strand is used as a pattern to produce a complementary strand, using specific base pairing. c. Each new DNA helix has one old strand with one new strand. 10.5 DNA replication proceeds in two directions at many sites simultaneously 1. DNA replication begins at the origins of replication where a. DNA unwinds at the origin to produce a “bubble,” b. replication proceeds in both directions from the origin, and replication ends when products from the bubbles merge with each other. 2. DNA replication occurs in the 5´ to 3´ direction. a. Replication is continuous on the 3´ to 5´ template. b. Replication is discontinuous on the 5´ to 3´ template, forming short segments (okazaki fragments) 3. Two key proteins are involved in DNA replication. a. DNA ligase joins small fragments into a continuous chain. b. DNA polymerase adds nucleotides to a growing chain and proofreads and corrects improper base pairings. 5 4. DNA polymerases& DNA ligase also repair DNA damaged by harmful radiation & toxic chemicals. 5. DNA replication ensures that all the somatic cells in a multicellular organism carry the same genetic information. The Flow of Genetic Information from DNA to RNA to Protein 10.6 The DNA genotype is expressed as proteins, which provide the molecular basis for phenotypic traits 1. DNA specifies traits by dictating protein synthesis. 2. The molecular chain of command is from DNA in the nucleus to RNA and RNA in the cytoplasm to protein. 3. Transcription is the synthesis of RNA under the direction of DNA. 4. Translation is the synthesis of proteins under the direction of RNA. 5. The connections between genes and proteins a. The initial one gene–one enzyme hypothesis based on studies of inherited metabolic diseases. b. The one gene–one enzyme hypothesis was expanded to include all proteins. c. Most recently, the one gene–one polypeptide hypothesis recognizes that some proteins are com- posed of multiple polypeptides. 10.7 Genetic information written in codons is translated into amino acid sequences - the sequence of nucleotides in DNA provides a code for constructing a protein. 1. Protein construction requires a conversion of a nucleotide sequence to an amino acid sequence. 2. Transcription rewrites the DNA code into RNA, using the same nucleotide “language.” 3. The flow of information from gene to protein is based on a triplet code: The genetic instructions for the amino acid sequence of a polypeptide chain are written in DNA and RNA as a series of nonoverlapping three-base “words” called codons. 4. Translation involves switching from the nucleotide “language” to the amino acid “language.” 5. Each amino acid is specified by one of the 64 codons. 6. Some amino acids have more than one possible codon. 10.8 The genetic code dictates how codons (found on mRNA) are translated into amino acids 1. Characteristics of the genetic code a. Three nucleotides specify one amino acid. b. 61 codons correspond to amino acids. c. AUG codes for methionine and signals the start of transcription. d. 3 “stop” codons signal the end of translation (UAA, UAG, and UGA) 6 2. Table of Codons 10.9 Transcription produces genetic messages in the form of RNA 1. An RNA molecule is transcribed from a DNA template by a process that resembles the partial synthesis of a DNA strand during DNA replication. 2. RNA nucleotides are linked by the transcription enzyme RNA polymerase. 3. Specific sequences of nucleotides along the DNA mark where transcription begins and ends. 4. The “start transcribe” signal is a nucleotide sequence called a promoter. 5. Transcription begins with initiation, as the RNA polymerase attaches to the promoter. 6. During the second phase, elongation, the RNA grows longer. 7. As the RNA peels away, the DNA strands rejoin. 8. Finally, in the third phase, termination, the RNA polymerase reaches a sequence of bases in the DNA template called a terminator, which signals the end of the gene. 9. The polymerase molecule now detaches from the RNA molecule and the gene. 7 10.10 Eukaryotic RNA is processed before leaving the nucleus as mRNA 1. Messenger RNA (mRNA) a. encodes amino acid sequences and conveys genetic messages from DNA to the translation ma- chinery of the cell, which in i. prokaryotes occurs in the same place that mRNA is made ii. eukaryotes mRNA must exit the nucleus via nuclear pores to enter the cytoplasm. c. Eukaryotic mRNA has introns, interrupting sequences that separate while exons, the coding re- gions.