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BIOT251 Review sheet Exam 1

Exam date: Monday February 25th 2008. There also will be a take-home component of the exam due Monday March 3rd. 

Exam format: exam will include short answer (few word to few sentence), problems, and drawing of certain structures or diagrams. I will ask you to APPLY the things we went over in class to new situations.

Study tips: review your notes, read the material I gave you to read , and think, think, think :)!

History of Biotechnology

Terms to understand:
Biotechnology
Fermentation
Induced mutagenesis and selection

Concepts to know:
· What does the term biotechnology mean?
· Review classical biotechnology (prior to the 70's) and modern biotechnology
· Review how microbial strains that produced large amounts of antibiotics were produced in the past (prior to the 70's).

Structure and Properties of DNA

Terms to Understand:

Concepts to know:
· Where is DNA located?
· How is DNA arranged in prokaryotic cells? Eukaryotic cells?
· Know which components make up a nucleotide.
· Know how nucleotide is put together - where is the Base? Where is the phosphate? Be able to draw a nucleotide
· Know how nucleotides are linked to form polynucleotide chains (single strand of DNA)
· Understand directionality of DNA and be able to identify 5' and 3' ends of the molecule.
· Review features of the Watson-Crick model of DNA structure
· Why does structure of DNA suggest a method of replication?
· Review DNA replication - the  important points I covered in class.
· Review how DNA is denatured and renatured.
· DNA absorbs UV light at a wavelength of 254nm
· How can you determine the concentration of DNA?
· What does underwinding of DNA molecules do?
· How does supercoiling affect migration in agarose gels?

Transcription:

Terms to understand:
Structural gene
Introns/exon
Splicing
RNA polymerase

Concepts to know:
· Know basic mechanism of transcription

Regulation of gene expression:

Terms to understand:

Concepts to know:
· Why does the expression of genes have to be regulated?
· Know basic structure of prokaryotic and eukaryotic promoter regions.
· What is the advantage of genes being arranged in an operon?
· Review repression and activation of prokaryotic genes. How are they alike? Different?
· Review the lac operon in detail - consider the effect of mutating one or more components of the system.
· Review the arabinose operon and pGLO plasmid.
· Consider why transcription regulation is more complex in eukaryotes.
· Protein bridge versus DNA folding model for enhancer function

Recombinant DNA Technology:

Terms to know:

Concepts to understand:
· Basic steps involved in recombinant DNA technology
· What is the natural function of restriction enzymes?
· How frequently do different length restriction sites occur?
· Know how to set up a restriction enzyme digestion.
· Be able to recognize 5' phosphate extensions and 3' hydroxyl extensions, and to "anneal" complimentary ends.
· Know the function of ligase and alkaline phosphatase in cloning. Do they need ATP to work?
· Review the key features that make plasmids good vectors.
· How is pBR322 used in cloning? PUC19? Be sure to understand the selection techniques used for both. Does cloning with these vectors allow you to distinguish between re-circularized vector and recombinant plasmid? What about re-circularized insert?
· Review lacZ'/X-gal/IPTG use with pUC19. - what color colonies would result from re-circularized vector? recombinant plasmid?     What about re-circularized insert?

Laboratory:
Review labs 1 and 2. Know how to do calculations for making solutions.