Molecular Genetics flashcards

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What is a DNA nucleotide?DNA Structure and Replication: A deoxyribose sugar, phosphate, and one nitrogenous base.
What does antiparallel mean in DNA?DNA Structure and Replication: The two strands run in opposite 5′ to 3′ directions.
Which bases are complementary in ordinary double-stranded DNA?DNA Structure and Replication: A with T, and G with C.
What carries sequence information in DNA?DNA Structure and Replication: The order of nucleotide bases.
What does semiconservative replication mean?DNA Structure and Replication: Each daughter duplex has one old and one newly made strand.
What is a template strand?DNA Structure and Replication: A strand guiding the complementary sequence of a new strand.
What is DNA polymerase?DNA Structure and Replication: An enzyme that adds DNA nucleotides to a growing strand.
What is a replication origin?DNA Structure and Replication: A DNA site where copying begins.
What is a replication fork?DNA Structure and Replication: A region where parental DNA opens and new strands are made.
What is the leading strand?DNA Structure and Replication: New DNA synthesized largely continuously toward a moving fork.
What is an Okazaki fragment?DNA Structure and Replication: A short new DNA segment made on the lagging strand.
What does DNA ligase do?DNA Structure and Replication: Seals breaks in the sugar-phosphate backbone between DNA fragments.
What is a gene?Genes and Chromosomes: A DNA region contributing to a functional RNA or protein product.
What is an allele?Genes and Chromosomes: A sequence variant at a genetic locus.
What is a locus?Genes and Chromosomes: A position on a chromosome.
What is phenotype?Genes and Chromosomes: An observable feature influenced by genes and context.
What is chromatin?Genes and Chromosomes: DNA together with associated packaging and regulatory proteins.
What is a nucleosome?Genes and Chromosomes: DNA wrapped around a core of histone proteins.
What is a chromosome?Genes and Chromosomes: An organized DNA molecule with associated components.
What is a genome?Genes and Chromosomes: The full genetic material of an organism or cell, in context.
What is gene expression?Genes and Chromosomes: Use of gene information to produce functional RNA or protein.
What is the common protein-coding information flow?Genes and Chromosomes: DNA to RNA to protein.
What is reverse transcription?Genes and Chromosomes: Synthesis of DNA using RNA as a template.
What can RNA abundance measure?Genes and Chromosomes: Transcript levels under specific sampling conditions.
What is transcription?Transcription: RNA synthesis using a DNA template.
What is RNA polymerase?Transcription: An enzyme that builds RNA from a DNA template.
What is a promoter?Transcription: A DNA region helping direct transcription initiation.
What base in RNA replaces DNA thymine?Transcription: Uracil.
What is transcription initiation?Transcription: Assembly and start of RNA synthesis at a transcription unit.
What is transcription elongation?Transcription: Extension of a growing RNA strand.
What is transcription termination?Transcription: Stopping RNA synthesis and releasing the transcript.
What is coupled transcription and translation?Transcription: Protein synthesis beginning on RNA while it is still being transcribed in some prokaryotes.
What is an intron?Transcription: A transcript segment commonly removed during RNA splicing.
What is an exon?Transcription: A segment retained in a mature RNA after splicing.
What is alternative splicing?Transcription: Producing distinct RNA isoforms by different exon choices.
What are an mRNA cap and poly(A) tail?Transcription: Common modifications at the ends of many eukaryotic mRNAs.
What is a codon?Translation and Protein Function: Three mRNA bases read together during translation.
What is a reading frame?Translation and Protein Function: The grouping of a nucleotide sequence into codon triplets.
What does AUG commonly signal?Translation and Protein Function: A start codon that also specifies methionine.
What is a stop codon?Translation and Protein Function: A codon signaling translation termination rather than an amino acid in the standard code.
What is a tRNA?Translation and Protein Function: An RNA that delivers an amino acid and recognizes an mRNA codon.
What is an anticodon?Translation and Protein Function: A tRNA triplet that base-pairs with an mRNA codon.
What is a peptide bond?Translation and Protein Function: A chemical linkage between amino acids in a polypeptide.
What is a release factor?Translation and Protein Function: A protein that recognizes a stop signal and helps end translation.
What is a polypeptide?Translation and Protein Function: A chain of amino acids linked by peptide bonds.
What is protein folding?Translation and Protein Function: Formation of a three-dimensional structure from a polypeptide.
What is a cofactor?Translation and Protein Function: A nonprotein component needed for some proteins to function.
Why is mRNA not a perfect protein measure?Translation and Protein Function: Translation and degradation alter protein abundance.
What is a substitution mutation?Mutation and Gene Regulation: Replacement of one DNA base by another.
What is a frameshift?Mutation and Gene Regulation: A change in codon grouping often caused by an insertion or deletion not divisible by three.
What is a synonymous change?Mutation and Gene Regulation: A coding change that leaves the specified amino acid unchanged.
What is a nonsense change?Mutation and Gene Regulation: A coding change that creates a premature stop codon.
What is a transcription factor?Mutation and Gene Regulation: A protein influencing transcription through DNA or other proteins.
What is an enhancer?Mutation and Gene Regulation: A regulatory DNA element that can increase transcription in context.
What is chromatin accessibility?Mutation and Gene Regulation: How available a DNA region is to molecular machinery.
What is post-transcriptional regulation?Mutation and Gene Regulation: Control of RNA processing, stability, localization, or use after transcription.
What does a sequence comparison identify?Mutation and Gene Regulation: DNA differences between compared samples.
What does an RNA assay measure?Mutation and Gene Regulation: Transcript presence or abundance in sampled conditions.
What does a protein activity assay test?Mutation and Gene Regulation: A selected function of a protein under stated conditions.
Why use controls in a variant study?Mutation and Gene Regulation: To isolate a proposed effect from other differences.