Molecules found in nature (termed “natural products”) are a rich source of compounds with biological activities that are useful as drugs. Marine organisms are a particularly good source of natural products. Imagine that you are a marine biologist searching for new natural products for use as anticancer drugs. While diving at a coral reef near Tahiti, you notice an unusual sponge that you have never seen before. You collect a sample, return to your lab and make a whole cell protein extract.
1. Come up with an experimental design to see if this sponge has anticancer properties.
Making a whole cell protein extract:
Living cells should be cultured on petri dishes and then incubated with a tracer in order for downstream flux analysis. Once the metabolic processes have been quenched, the next step is to lyse the cells, separating both the polar and non-polar metabolites from the other cellular substances at the same time. After these steps, the cells are shaken to completely lyse the membranes allowing for a more efficient extraction of all possible biomolecules. After shaking, there should be a clear separation between the polar and non-polar phase for the metabolites, with a well-defined interphase containing proteins and nucleic acids. After centrifugation, the different phases are now separated, and each one can be sampled for further analysis
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During the process of RNA interface long double stranded RNA is cut into small pieces by an enzyme known as “Dicer”. Those small pieces bind with proteins known as the Argonaute proteins. After this binding takes place one of the double stranded RNA becomes removed which leaves the remaining strand to bind to messenger RNA target sequences. Once they are bound, the protein can either recruit certain factors to help regulate it, destroy it, or cleave the messenger
I learned that anaerobic is an organism or tissue that is living in the absence of air or oxygen while aerobic is involves the organism or tissue receiving and requiring air. Furthermore I learned about the anaerobic cellular respiration that uses an electron acceptor rather than oxygen to complete metabolism using electron transport-based chemiosmosis. Also in this reading I learned about fermentation which is an anaerobic process in which energy can be released from glucose even though oxygen is not available.
Observation: no bugs were found except small, black, gnats were all close to the ground.
The purpose of this experiment was we were trying to see if the number of arthropods would be significantly different in sparse and dense areas of the woods. Ms.Ehnert provided us with the design of a trap to set up in the woods so we could more actually count the amount and types of bugs that we find. The trap was a cup filled with anti-freeze that we put in the ground and then covered it with a paper plait, but raised it so bugs could get in and bigger animals couldn’t. We waited for a week to collect the results and then counted all of them and sorted them. My hypothesis was based off of common sense, the simple assumption that less trees equals less arthropods and more trees equals more arthropods. I knew that living things need a habitat
The outcome of this lab proved for the prediction to be true. The organisms in the aquatic chamber died out and the water quality slowly deteriorated before the lab ended. Although the organisms eventually died, there was a time when the aquatic chamber was able to support life. The aquatic chamber had its own food chain where the fish ate the plant to stay alive. Furthermore, the water quality of the chamber began to deteriorate over the few weeks becoming a cloudy murky brown color.
Predominant life fuel resource changed during the body development. ATP is mainly sourced from glucose at fetal phase, then gradually shift to fatty acid metabolism after birth. Studies proved that individuals born with a low birth weight (LBW) have an increased risk of cardiovascular disease in adult life, which glucose transport and related metabolism involved. In this paper, author use the lamb as the IUGR model, tried to find out the effect of changes in the intrauterine environment that result in LBW on key regulatory proteins involved in cardiac glucose metabolism, glucose transport and fatty acid metabolism.
The hypothesis for this situation is that the plant that is not doing very well is that it is not getting the same amount of sun as the plant that was doing really well. Another possibility is that it’s not getting enough water as the other plant so it could not be doing as well because of those two
An association between enzyme production, gene copy number, and gene evolution was explored by conducting analysis of the salivary amylase enzyme, AMY1A gene copy number, and the ancestral starch consumption in Homo Sapiens (Tracey 2017, p.22). It was hypothesized that the relative amount of starch consumption was very high for my personal ancestral diet, thus my AMY1 diploid gene copy number in my genome and salivary amylase concentration would be significantly higher than the population mean. With a population of 28 subjects (n=28), individual saliva samples were collected and compared to a calibration curve to determine the approximate amylase concentration by analyzing absorbance values. Individual samples of buccal cheek cells were
The fluid mosaic model developed by S.J Singer and Garth Nicolson in 1972 explains the structure of the membrane. It shows this through the explanation of the phospholipid bilayer which contains hydrophobic tails and a hydrophilic heads as well as the peripheral and integral proteins which help to hold the structure. The fluid mosaic model also says how the membrane is in a fluid form rather than solid because of the constant movement within the membrane (Biology Online, 2008).
The two experiments performed in this lab to determine the factors that affect cell growth. Part 1 was used to determine the effects of differential media and other conditions necessary for cell growth. The second part studies how cells respond in suspension and the formation of Multicell Tumor Spheroids (MTS). The cells were initially calculated using the Neubauer method, the cells were then separated in certain concentrations to be transferred to variously prepared plates and wells. It was expected that a higher amount of growth would occur in IDMEM media compared to MEM media. This was due to the richer nutrients of the IDMEM media. While the amino acids, glucose, and vitamins that are not found in MEM media restrict the growth of cells. Similarly, the IDMEM media with 10% serum was also expected to have more growth than the MEM with 10% serum due to its richer nutrients. Therefore, the IDMEM with 10% serum should have the most abundant growth, followed by IDMEM, MEM with 10% serum and finally MEM with the least amount of growth. The 10% serum also affects the cells, serum contains growth factors and adhesion factors that are responsible for cell proliferation and cell attachments. The plates that consisted of agarose should also show
Proteins are large complex molecules that are made of one or more chains of amino acids. They play an important role in the cellular life as they are involved in human’s physiology. Many diseases in humans are caused by mutations in DNA coding. These mutations lead to defective proteins. Investigating these diseases can be very challenging because using human subjects for research involve many health risks and the long human’ life span results in the lack of information about the genomic aspect of these diseases. In order to overcome these constraints, researchers use non-humans’ models to study human diseases. Indeed, many studies have revealed proteins homology among organisms. Proteins that share the same family and functions are categorized as protein domains. These
Once dsRNA is injected it binds to Dicer, an endonuclease protein that cuts RNA into short segments of 21 nucleotides long that are siRNA or micro RNAs. The short dsRNA binds to an argonaute protein and a guide strand is selected. The RNA, argonaute protein, and other proteins are called the RNA Induced Silencing Complex (RISC). Micro RNA’s help guide RISC to messenger RNA’s. The seed, part of the micro RNA, pairs with a target messenger RNA. Targeting by a micro RNA can lead to messenger RNA to be degraded or translation from being inhibited. Antisense RNA alone is not sufficient to evoke an RNAi response because the RNA needs to go through many steps with the help of other proteins to be able to have the ability to achieve RNAi.
Perhaps one of the greatest features of marine life is that, compared to land, there is more biodiversity found in the ocean. This is directly due to the intricate and specialized genetic composition that make up the DNA of marine organisms. Comprehensively, over 20,000 organic compounds have been collected from marine organisms (National Research Council, 2007). Of the 36 phyla found on the planet, 94% of them are found in the ocean. In comparison to the 47% found on land, this diversity is arguably the main reason why the ocean holds so much biomedical potential and promise (Targett et al., 2002). In fact, jellyfish and corals are organisms that are not found anywhere else but in the ocean (Marris, 2006). Furthermore, according to the National
Oceanic drug development should further become a priority due to its ability to produce highly effective drugs: both history and lab studies attest to this fact. Compounds derived from ocean microbes and other organisms are often highly effective at treating a wide range of critical conditions, wiping out pathogens with remarkable efficiency. Martinez and Rusch, two researchers from the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies found oceanic drugs are “six times more productive than industry standards.” For a time in which diseases are advancing and patients are dying, effective and potent medicines are critical- oceanic medicines are the key to an impending medical crises. Outdated industry standards are based on terrestrial compounds
A proposed collaborative project between different established multidisciplinary team, aims to isolate and characterized various bioactive molecules from marine microalga. Marine microalgae, have been already used as food, feed and fertilizers, cosmetic and pharmaceuticals for centuries, and nowadays approximately 200 species are used worldwide in different sectors. Marked trend and consumers growing interest in natural and healthy products have forced researches and industry to develop novel products with functional ingredients that could improve health status. Consumers are searching for food products that will help them prevent and fight diseases, increase their energy and wellness, and help them live longer, healthier, and productive
bstractThe oceans are the source of a large group ofstructurally unique natural products that are mainly accu-mulated in invertebrates such as sponges, tunicates,bryozoans, and molluscs. Several of these compounds(especially the tunicate metabolite ET-743) show pro-nounced pharmacological activities and are interestingcandidates for new drugs primarily in the area of cancertreatment. Other compounds are currently being devel-oped as an analgesic (ziconotide from the mollusc Conusmagus) or to treat inflammation. Numerous natural prod-ucts from marine invertebrates show striking structuralsimilarities to known metabolites of microbial origin,suggesting that microorganisms (bacteria,