Dna Repair Mechanisms And Cell Cycle Control

You would expect for the normal lung cells to not have to divide as often because those cells are not exposed to many things through out the day. The normal stomach cells on the other hand would be expected to divide more because there is a lot of acidity in the stomach and therefore those cells are exposed to a lot of things on a daily basis. As for the ovaries you would expect that there would be a little more cell division because that is where new life is formed and all of the things that come along with that which means that there should be more division going on.

The purpose of this lab was to test if yeast could or could not metabolize different types of sugars. The lab can also display how the different types of sugars affect the rate of respiration in yeast. The yeast was tested with each individual sugar to determine the rate of respiration. The smallest sugar had the highest rate of respiration and the largest sugar had the lowest rate of respiration.

The common fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster is often regarded as the model organism for genetic testing due to many factors such as its short reproductive cycle, its similarities to humans, or the ease of tracking mutations in Drosophila melanogaster. The Drosophila melanogaster is used to model diseases such as Cancer, Diabetes, and Huntington’s Disease. By studying the changes in how the proteins interact, the origin of such disease can be found providing a deeper understanding of how to cure these fatal ailments.

Abstract: Retinoblastoma is a rare childhood tumour of the eye that is characterised by the inability of developing retinal cells to proliferate in a controlled way. This is because the retinoblastoma protein (pRb) involved in cell cycle regulation is non-functional due to the diversity of allelic mutations which arise in the Rb1 gene. The consequent tumours show distinct growth patterns, which if left untreated could severely compromise vision and cause the development of secondary malignancies. Survival from retinoblastoma is correlated with the severity of the disease and the speed of intervention. Though radiation therapies were the principle method of treatment, chemotherapy and surgical intervention now form the primary treatment

Engineered s. cerevisiae with a reconstituted 7-gene pathway is feasible for the synthesis and production of codeine and morphine from (R)-reticuline (Fossati, et.al, 2015). S. cerevisiae cells fed “(R)-reticuline, salutaridine or codeine as substrates showed that all enzymes were functionally co-expressed in yeast and that activity of salutaridine reductase and codeine-O-demethylase likely limit flux to morphine synthesis” (Fossati, et.al, 2015). This study describes a significant advance for S. cerevisiae and paves the way for complete synthesis of substances not naturally produced by microbes. Morphine alkaloids are narcotic analgesics and the most powerful naturally produced alkaloids used to treat severe and chronic pain.

"The yeast genome is closer to the human genome than anything completely sequenced so far," said Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). "The complete sequence will allow us to move into a whole new area of biology—looking at how all the genetic instructions work together to make a whole cell function."

Next up is the Krebs cycle, which simply picks up where glycolysis left off. The Krebs cycle, or otherwise referred to as, the Citric Acid cycle, or the TCA Cycle, is extremely pertinent in cellular respiration. In fact, without this process, respiration could not be possible. Reason being, is the Krebs cycle takes the pyruvate molecules that were present in glycolysis in order to create high energy molecules necessary for the electron transport chain (ETC) which follows soon after. One of the interesting things about cell respiration is that it is part of an essentially universal "toolkit" that characterizes all of life, at least for life involving eukaryotic

The cell cycle is the life cycle of a cell and is the most important process the cell undergoes. Thanks to this process, cells are able to replicate and procreate efficiently to insure the safety of the organism they are a part of. Cell signaling allows for cells to communicate in order to direct actions within an organism.

In human cells, a combination of normal metabolic activities, errors in DNA replication, and external mutagens like radiation can lead to 1 million individual molecular lesions per cell per day. Therefore, DNA repair mechanisms are constantly active to help ensure that these molecular lesions do not lead to various diseases.

First successful utilization of ZFN was in fruit flies as early as 2002, and since then it has been used to alter the genome of a myriad of different organisms – including those not considered as genetic model systems. The binding specificity of the designed zinc-finger domain points the ZFN to a specific genomic site.

DNA is also known as Deoxyribonucleic acid, it codes the genetic information that is used in the expansion and functioning of all known living organisms and diseases. Frederich Meisher was the Swiss biochemist that first discovered DNA in the late 1800s, but not until a century later was it that researchers released the importance of the DNA molecule. DNA contains the biological instructions that make each species unique. One important feature of DNA is that it can replicate itself; each single strand in the double helix structure can function as a pattern for copying the order of bases. This is incredibly important for as and when cells divide because each new cell needs to have a precise copy of the DNA existent in the old cell.

Prior to cell division, a cell copies its DNA & each chromosome densely coils & shortens

This principle demonstration of the medical benefits that genetic modification could pioneer became the basis for a new biotech science that now involves both prokaryotes such as bacteria, and eukaryotes including yeast, plants, insects and mammals.

In Saccharomyces cerevisiae, lysine methyltransferase Set1 protein is a member of COMPASS, a protein complex that catalyzes methyl transfer from methyl donor S-adenosylmethionine to lysine 4 of histone 3. Methylation of lysine 4 of histone 3 regulates gene expression and gene silencing. In order to develop a screen to identify important residues for silencing by Set1, single amino acid substitutions were introduced into the SET domain. Two different missense mutations were introduced to code for either a phenylalanine (Y967F) or an alanine (Y967A). In the mutant strains, set1 gene silencing was assessed by measuring the transcription level of the HIS3 gene in the rDNA. The mutant strains were grown on sc-his plate, which allowed cells that transcribe high levels of HIS3 to grow quicker. However, there was not a clear difference on the spot plate assay, thus a HIS3 gene product inhibitor, 3-amino-1,2,4-triazole was used to better assess growth differences between the mutant yeast strains. The findings indicate that Y967F set1 showed similar growth patterns to the wild type SET1, while Y967A set1 showed similar growth to the set1Δ (1). However, the growth patterns for SET1 and set1Δ were the opposite of what was expected. The wild type strain contains a set1 gene, which causes HIS3 silencing, so it is expected that the SET1 strain to have more growth defects than the set1Δ, which lacks the set1 gene. These growth differences are due to changes beyond loss of silencing

Synthetic biology provides the ability to make specific modifications to the genome of a model organism and to use this as a tool to study and understand the fundamental biological processes of microorganisms, plants and animals and apply this knowledge to create novel products. One of the major application is that these findings will expand the biological repertoire available for the designing of new genetic pathways, proteins and cells to manipulate biological reactions that normally occur. The current ambition is to create a database of shared standardised parts that will be used to manipulate DNA. An example is the BioBricks Foundation which provides open access to DNA sequences for cloning and expression of different nucleic acids and proteins. The information that BioBricks provides, is shared through iGEM the annual international competition to students from across the world who want to do research and give solutions to real world problems, such as environmental pollution. (Synthetic Biology: opportunities for Scotland, 2014)