Chapter 11: DNA

Forensic Serology → the examination and analysis of bodily fluids, and the application of these data to legal matters.

Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) → method used to clone sequences of DNA

• The most important enzyme in a PCR reaction is called Taq polymerase, which is derived from the heat-loving bacterium Thermus aquaticus and is essential for synthesizing new DNA strands during the amplification process.

• In order to develop PCR the enzyme needed needs to withstand extreme heat needed to unzip the DNA strands

• Ribosomes are those parts of a cell that take amino acids and knit them together into proteins.

• Phosphoric acid group are the part of the nucleotide makes up the backbone of the helix

• Nucleases is responsible for the environmental breakdown of DNA?

• Stop Codon: UAA, UAG, UGA

• Start Codon: AUG

• Electrophoresis → the process that is used to separate fragments of DNA using electricity to pull fragments through a semi-solid medium

• The likelihood of recovering mtDNA in small or degraded biological samples is greater than recovering nuclear DNA because mtDNA molecules are present in hundreds to thousands of copies per cell.

• The sequence of amino acids is called the primary structure of the protein

• DNA is not very heat stable at high temperatures, so getting it up to 70°C or so will cause it to denature, or break apart

• Hybridization → the process in which a probe along with a radioactive label is bound to DNA fragments

• Three DNA base pairs code for a single amino acid

• Helicase is the enzyme that breaks just the hydrogen bonds associated with a certain gene so that RNA can zip it

• RNA is measured by where it floats in a liquid while spinning in a centrifuge

  • The lower the number, the higher up on the wall it stuck, and therefore the smaller the size

• The Svedberg unit is used to measure RNA