Flipping The Switch : How Cells Use Rna Regulate Genes Expression

“Bacterial illness is a result of complex interactions between bacteria and the host. During evolution, humans developed many ways to protect themselves against bacterial pathogens. On the other hand, bacteria have developed strategies to evade, subvert or circumvent these defenses” (Sousa, 2003) “One of the most important characteristics of bacterial pathogenicity is the various strategies developed by prokaryotic organisms to use host molecules for their own benefit” (Sousa, 2003). “To accomplish this, bacteria have evolved elaborate control mechanisms to turn genes on and off, varying the transcriptional activator or

The article “Bacterial snack attack deactivates a drug” by Christian Jobin discusses how the presence of certain bacteria among cancer cells can pose complications with chemotherapy. Jobin begins the article by giving a brief explanation of the importance of bacteria naturally found in the human environment. Jobin continues to explain the significance of these bacteria writing “our bacterial population contains millions of genes encoding enzymes that can process substances that have been derived from nutrients or the environment, or that have been administered as drugs.” Therefore, bacteria play a very crucial role in maintaining normal body functions.

Bacteria belongs to a group of organism that lacks cell nucleus and membrane bound organells. This group of organisms are termed as prokaryotes. Prokaryotes follows the central dogma of molecular biology first proposed by Francis Crick in 1958 to synthesize proteins from mRNA through a process called translation and the mRNA is being synthesized from the DNA by another process called Transcription. Temperature, nutrient availibity are some key factors that start the process of synthesizing proteins in response to these key factors. Example. This paper will provide an explanation as to how bacteria decode the genetic information to produce

Bacteria are the natural world 's unsung heroes. They receive bad rep due to the disease causing individuals like tuberculosis but the vast majority of bacteria on Earth are harmless if not beneficial to both the environment and humans. Take for example E. Coli a well known bacteria that lives within our intestines. This particular bacteria makes vitamins that we need in order to stay healthy. In this experiment we analyzed the changes seen in bacteria when adding to differing DNA plasmids; pUC18 and lux. To arrive to the most accurate results possible we had to have the E. Coli bacteria made permeable to the plasmids. So it was prepared with calcium chloride. One group of bacteria was given the pUC18 plasmid, and the other group was given the lux as well as the pUC18 plasmids. We then proceeded to incubate them in different containers. Some had ampicillin where as some had none. This was done in order to observe the effect of pUC18, and lux growth patterns. A control with neither plasmid was used to keep a basis for our experiments. Bacteria that had transformed and taken in the lux plasmid without ampicilin were able to illuminate, and only bacteria that gained the pUC18 were capable of surviving with ampicillin. The results observed reveal how foreign DNA can be adapted to fit into another cell 's DNA even incorporated to be an optimal part of the cell. This process makes it a very viable manner of being able to mass replicate advantageous genes, that would

It was interesting to find research that could potentially correlate bacterial infections with carcinogenic cells. The bacteria was able to manipulate infected cells and produce harmful proteins potentially leading to unregulated cell growth. It would be interesting to see to what extent inflamed and infected tissue within the body increases the chances of cancerous growth. As shown in this research, bacteria are extremely effective in manipulating and impacting the function of other cells in the human body. I believe more research on the function of this bacterium could make great strides in preventing cancer growth early on and understanding more about the development of

The first part of this process is called transcription, where the DNA of a gene is turned into mRNA. The second part of this process, translation, is where the mRNA is turned into a protein. The transcription process is regulated by small proteins called transcription factors. The location of the transcription factors' binding to DNA, determines which genes the cell expresses. Different transcription factors are operating actively in different cell types, which causes different cell types to produce different proteins, which causes each cell to have a unique distinctive

Gene expression is the ability of a gene to produce a biologically active protein. This process is regulated by the cells of an organism, it is very important to the survival of organisms at all levels. This is much more complex in eukaryotes than in prokaryotes. A major difference is the presence in eukaryotes of a nuclear membrane, which prevents the simultaneous transcription and translation that occurs in prokaryotes. Initiation of protein transcription is started by RNA polymerase. The activity of RNA polymerase is regulated by interaction with regulatory proteins; these proteins can act both positively, as activators, and negatively as repressors. An example of gene regulation in cells is the activity of the trp operon. The trp

One of the fundamental discoveries of the 20th century was that DNA was the genetic code’s physical structure (Watson & Crick, 1953) and, since then, many studies have disclosed the complicated pattern of regulation and expression of genes, which involve RNA synthesis and its subsequent translation into proteins.

The major research questions addressed in the presentation consisted of: why to study microbes? , What are the basics of gene expression? , What’s special about riboswitches? The major hypotheses that were explored during the presentation were “S box” represses genes involved in the synthesis of methionine and SAM in response to the high SAM concentration; and the low SAM results in the readthrough of the termination site. Also “How can gene expression be regulated” and under what conditions/processes the bacterial cells could use to detect environmental signals, specifically Dr. Henkin talks about some of the predictions of the model, which another hypothesis is “If we reduce SAM concentrations in the cell would we see increased gene expression”? Also would the increase in expression be from the effects on translation? Dr. Henkin used a variety of the methods to study the topic including a power point presentation in which she organized the information she was going to talk about in front of the class. The specific method used in the presentation was the S box riboswitch structural model, and the different types of S box riboswitches. (SAM). She started the presentation talking about how bacterial cells have more genetic information than they use at any given time, and explained the basics of gene expression. Dr. Henkin explained the many important steps that the expression undergoes. Starting with step 1, transcription occurs which is the expression of a gene requiring the

Regulation of gene expression is essential for proper functioning of living organisms. In prokaryotes, one of the ways in which gene expression is regulated is by Riboswitches. Riboswitches are are cis-regulatory secondary RNA structures formed in the 5’ UTR( untranslated region) of mRNA and regulate transcription and translation by causing premature termination(Serganov et al.,2012; Steinert et al., 2017). They function by conformational switches between binding states. The components of the riboswitches that are mutually paired together differ in the on and off states. In addition, the conformational

Gene expression can be modulated by multiple intermediate steps, including transcription, post-transcriptional modifications, RNA splicing, translation, and post-translational modifications; transcription being the first step and a key mechanism for regulating gene expression. Transcriptional control is mediated through promoters and regulatory elements, which are all essential for spatiotemporally correct gene expression. Genome organization has been undoubtedly linked with regulation of gene expression through global analyses of mammalian genomes. Previous hypotheses suggested that genome is arranged as independently regulated chromosomal domains flanked by boundary elements (i.e. insulators). This might be true in compact genomes of organisms such as yeasts (e.g. S. cerevisiae 12.1 Mb), where an uninterrupted genomic segment (i.e. regulatory expression unit) is formed comprising of a particular gene and its regulatory elements. Nevertheless, in more complex genomes such as those of humans (H. sapiens 3.2 Gb) and mouse (M. musculus 2.7 Gb) the situation is substantially more complex, where genes and their regulatory elements can be dispersed over many hundreds of kilobases. These observations concur with current hypotheses, where cis-regulatory elements including Locus Control Regions (LCRs), enhancers, silencers, and insulators, may be dispersed over tens to thousands of kilobases. Furthermore, cis-regulatory elements of one gene are commonly embedded within a neighbour

Microbiology is a huge subject that encompasses a wide variety of subtopics dealing with the microscopic organisms, such as viruses, prions, and bacteria, that can cause diseases or live in our body to actually aid us. Microbiology deals with studying these microbes and determining how their interactions with other living things, such as the environment, humans, animals, and plants, affect them. Through these studies, our understanding of life is

Transcriptional repression is an important process in many biological pathways. These include development, maintaining homeostasis and regulating physiological processes. In order to control the multitude of pathways, there are a number of repressive mechanisms that are elicited by a diverse set of proteins. These proteins can be broadly classified based on their functional properties. For example, some repressors function at cis-regulatory elements to directly interfere with transcriptional machinery (Fig. 1b). Other repressors alter the chromatin structure surrounding a gene (Fig. 1a), which in turn represses transcription in a less direct fashion. Transcriptional repressors can also be defined by whether they bind DNA directly or bind DNA bound transcription factors to modulate their function (Fig. 1c, d). Proteins that use the later mechanism are termed co-repressors [1]. The Groucho/Tup1 (Gro/Tup1) class is a conserved family of co-repressors found in a range of eukaryotic organisms, established by the metazoan protein Groucho.

Beadle and Tatum’s experiment and their “one gene one enzyme” hypothesis showed that the production of one protein is dependent on one gene.

Ekpo, M. A. and Thomas, N. N. (2007). An investigation on the state of microorganisms