Review for Final Exam
The final is comprehensive.
~25% of the final will cover material from earlier in the semester (and thus, the same areas covered by the first 2 exams will be covered).
The remainder will cover material not yet tested.
Everything in the textbook covered during this semester is fair game.
Everything in my notes should be considered important.
Here are the essentials to know (items in bold are the most central):
Chapter 25: DNA metabolism
Semi-conservative replication & experiments to test it
Origins of replications & replication forks
Enzymology of DNA polymerases: DNA pol I & pol III
Continuous & discontinuous synthesis, Okazaki fragments
The process of replication and roles of all the players:
subunits of DNA pol
exonuclease activities
sliding clamp & loading complex
helicase & topoisomerase
SSBs
primase
ligase
Initiation of replication
Repair of DNA
mismatch repair
base excision
nucleotide excision
DNA recombination
Holliday structures: how they are made & resolved
Chapter 26: RNA metabolism
Types of RNA
transcription
prokaryotic
stages
pol II (eukaryotic)
factors involved
pol I & III
Post-transcriptional processing
5' cap
poly-A addition
splicing
group 1 & 2 introns
pol II transcripts (spliceosome)
Elements of a gene (enhancers, promoter, start site, splice sites, etc…)
Chapter 27: Translation & beyond
Genetic code
How it was deciphered
How it makes sense
Exceptions
Translation
The process in prokaryotes & eukaryotes
tRNA structure & function
Amino acyl-tRNA synthetases
Initiation, elongation, termination & role of the factors
Proofreading
Post-translational processes
Folding & chaperones
Translocation across bacterial membrane & ER membrane
Import into mitochondria & nucleus
Movement within the endosecretory system
Degradation (ubiquitin system, N-end rule)
Chapter 28: Regulation of gene expression
General principles
transcriptional, activators, repressors, operon model, etc.
Examples
The lac operon (lac repressor & catabolite repression)
The trp operon (attenuation)
Ribosome synthesis (stringent response, r-proteins)
DNA-binding proteins
General mode of action
Helix-turn-helix
DNA-binding proteins in eukaryotes
Modular structure (DNA-binding, protein interaction, transactivation)
Homeodomain (helix-turn-helix)
Zinc finger
Leu zipper
Helix-loop-helix
General concerns of transcriptional regulation in eukaryotes
Effect of chromatin & chromatin remodeling
Transcriptional activation
Enhancers
Transactivators
Coactivators
The GAL system in yeast
Presentations
Caspases & their activation
Student presentations