The final section of the course examines regulation of transcription in Eukaryotes, RNA and its many functions, and translation. In the late half of this section we will be looking at the importance of RNA as a cellular regulatory mechanism. When we reach translation, we will do a brief overview of the process and then look more specifically at the role of RNA molecules in every step of the process. The readings for each section are outlined below with links to the specific web pages. There is also a link to the online review page for this exam, practice exam problems and their answers.
Exam IV Practice Problems: Exam IV Practice.pdf
Exam IV Practice Problem Answers:Exam IV Practice Ans.pdf
Topic 14 Eukaryotic Transcription
Readings:
- Molecular Biology of the Cell: General Transcription Factors
- Molecular Biology of the Cell: RNA Processing
Animations:
Topic 15 Eukaryotic Transcriptional Regulation I
Readings:
- The Cell-A Molecular Approach: A very good, basic description of transcriptional activators/repressors, acetylation, and methylation
- Molecular Biology of the Cell: More detailed description of chromatin remodeling
- Biochemistry: The biochemistry of histone tail acetylation
Animations:
Topic 16 Eukaryotic Transcriptional Regulation II
Readings:
- Human Molecular Genetics: Methylation and Imprinting (We looked at several figures from this reading: Fig 8.25, Fig 8.19, Fig 8.24)
Animations:
- HHMI Biointeractive: MeCP2, Methylation and Gene Silencing
If you are really interested in imprinting (which you should be), the wonderful Geneimprint site keeps track of all new research on imprinting and it also has an up to date list of the genes that have been shown to be imprinted
Topic 17 RNA Structure, Ribozymes, and Regulatory RNA
The following two part video is a wonderful review of RNA structure and the discovery of RNA as a catalyst by Dr. Tom Cech who won the 1989 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his discoveries.
Readings:
- Biochemistry: RNA Catalysts
- Nobel Prize.org: RNA interference and its significance
- Nature RNAi Poster: Nature Reviews RNAi_poster.pdf
Animations:
- NOVA: RNAi Segment
- Nature: RNAi Animation
- McGraw Hill: RNAi Animation
Topic 18 RNA Splicing
Readings:
- Molecular Biology of the Cell: Splicing (Many of the figures are similar to what we use in class)
Animations:
- RNA Splicing Animation
Topic 19 Translation and Translation Control
Readings:
Animations: