Int. Bio Unit 1

Flashcards covering key vocabulary from the Exam 1 Review.

Phenotype

Any physical observable traits resulting from genes and the environment.

Proximate causation

Explanations that focus on the molecular and cellular mechanisms responsible for a function.

Ultimate causation

Explanations that focus on why structures and processes observed in an organism exist in terms of their evolutionary history and impact on fitness.

Central dogma

The concept of flow of genetic information from DNA to RNA, and RNA to proteins, including transcription and translation.

Eukaryotic Transcription

Process that occurs in the nucleus where transcription factors and a promoter region are needed for eukaryotic transcription to occur.

RNA polymerase

Reads the template (non-coding) DNA strand 3’-5’ and adds bases to the 3’ end of the growing mRNA strand.

Eukaryotic Translation

Process that occurs in the cytoplasm, where mRNA binds to ribosome and tRNA contains an anticodon complementary to the mRNA codon.

A site

Where amino acid-carrying tRNAs enter the ribosome.

P site

Where peptide bond formation takes place between the new amino acid and the chain of already added ones.

E site

Where tRNAs sit once the amino acid they were carrying has been added to the growing protein, and the now-uncharged tRNA exits the ribosome from this site.

Purines

Guanine and adenine, which have two rings.

Pyrimidines

Cytosine, uracil and thymine, which have only one ring.

Heritability

Proportion of phenotypic variation in a population attributable to genetic variation.

Mutation

Change in the nucleotide sequence of a gene or DNA molecule.

Discrete variable

A quantity that can only take certain, discrete values.

Continuous variable

A quantity that can take a continuous range of values.