Study Guide for Unit 5 (Ch. 15-17)
Chapter 15: Regulation of Gene Expression
 Understand how bacteria genes are regulated
o Why do they want to control gene expression (ex. Tryptophan amount)
o Feedback inhibition
o Operon
o Operator
o Repressor
o Regulatory gene
o Corepressor
o Negative gene regulation
 Repressible and inducible operons
 Understand lac operon example
 Inducer
 Know the difference between repressible and inducible
o Positive gene regulation- compare and contrast with negative gene regulation
 Eukaryotic gene expression
o Why is gene expression so essential for all organisms?
o Differential gene expression- what does this lead to?
o Transcription and gene expression
o Regulation of chromatin structure
 What affects whether a gene is expressed?
o Histone modifications and DNA methylation
o Epigenetics
o Regulation of transcription initiation
o Organization of typical eukaryotic gene
 5’ cap
 3’ poly A tail
 Transcription complex
o Transcription factors
 Control elements
 Enhancers
o Coordinate regulation
o Post-transcriptional regulation
 RNA processing
 Alternative RNA splicing
 mRNA degradation
 Initiation of translation
 Protein processing and degradation
 Importance of non-coding DNA
o Non-protein coding RNA
 A lot still unknown
Chapter 16: Development, Stem Cells, and Cancer
 What is a model organism? Why do we need them?
 Different gene expression=different cell types
o Cell differentiation
o Morphogenesis
o What generates the first differences in an early embryo?




 Cytoplasmic determinants
 Induction
o Regulation of gene expression during differentiation
 Determination
o Differentiation of cell types
Apoptosis
o Describe the process
o Why is it important
Pattern formation (body organization)
o Homeotic genes
o Bicoid
o Morphogens
Cloning
o Why is the topic important?
o How do they do it?
o Why are there abnormalities and difficulties with cloned animals?
o Stem cells
 Totipotent, pluripotent
 Induced pluripotent cells
 Why is the topic important?
o Clones may be identical in terms of DNA, but environmental factors or cellular factors
(Barr bodies) may lead them to look different
Abnormal regulation of genes that control the cell cycle can lead to cancer
o Cancer
 Proto-oncogenes vs. oncogenes
 Effects of translocation of chromosome and gene regulation
 Tumor-suppressor genes
 Normal vs. mutant cell cycle-inhibiting pathway
 Viruses and cancer
Ch. 17: Viruses
 What is a virus made of?
o Capsid- what is this?
o Nucleic acid
o What about envelopes? Why are these important?
 Is it considered to be living or dead?
 Bacteriophages
 Host and host range
 Process of host infection
o Lytic and lysogenic virus reproduction cycles
o Restriction enzymes
 Retroviruses
o Reverse transcriptase
o HIV and AIDS
 Vaccine
o Do antibiotics work on a virus? Why or why not?
 Emerging virus
 Epidemic vs. Pandemic