Unit 3: Control of Gene Expression and Animal Development.

"If you give me the coding sequences of a chimp and the regulatory sequences of a mouse, I'll give you a mouse." - unknown geneticist.

Objective 3:

• Operon Tutorial (optional, but helpful!)
• Repression of the trp operon
• lac operon (Jacob/Monod model) animation from Campbell Biology
• Induction of the lac operon

Objectives 4 & 5:

• Positive v. negative control of prokaryotic gene transcription

Objective 6:

• Transcription of eukaryotic vs. prokaryotic genomes (6c)

Objective 7:

• How Does Methylation Control Synthesis of Proteins?
• You are what your mother ate - diet linked to methylation ^(optional)
• Genetic Imprinting: The Battle of the Sexes - Reloaded ^(optional)
• Genome biology: She moves in mysterious ways - The human X chromosome is a study in contradictions. The detailed sequence of the X, and a survey of inactivated genes in females, help to illuminate this unique 'evolutionary space'.
• Unexpressed but Indispensable: The (non-coding) DNA Sequences that Control Development. ^(optional)

Objective 9:

• optional:
  • Human clone produces stem cells  ... Or not?  Evidence found that data were fraudulent
  • Diagram showing how they made Dolly (from Liem et al. Functional Anatomy of the Vertebrates, 3rd ed.)
  • Give the dog a clone
  • ViaGen: Gene Banking and Cloning of Exceptional Pets

Objective 15:

• Yolk content and cleavage in human eggs (15c)
• Zygote and morula (15d)
  • Zygotes: sea urchin, frog (zygote upper left, morula bottom right)

Objective 17:

• Notochord development (17a)
•  Neural crest cells (17d)
  • Formation and fate of neural crest cells - also see p.998 in Campbell
  • Scientists Hatch a Few Odd Birds  (optional)
• Somite development (17e)

Objective 18:

• Comparative development (18b)

Objectives 20 & 21:

• Determinate v. indeterminate cleavage & embryonic induction

Slides

• Unit 3 Slides (Accompanying text can be found in your Survival Manual on pages 58-60.)

Optional Supplementary Material:

• Lost Limb? Flatworm May Hold Answers. Researchers explore the planarian genome in search for regenerative treatments.
• Careful How You Monkey With DNA. Scientists discuss regulations to prevent the production of creatures that blur the line between animal and human.
• Stem Cells Give Horses a Hoof Up: While American scientists struggle with the science and ethics of human stem-cell research, a California company is routinely using stem cells successfully as a therapy -- in horses.
• MicroRNA Is a Big Topic in Bio: One of the tiniest entities in the human genome is becoming a very big deal in biology, with implications for the treatment of cancer, diabetes and brain disorders.
• Sonic Hedgehog Shapes the Brain
• Rogue Finger Gene Got Bats Airborne: A change to a single gene allowed bats to grow wings and take to the air, a development that may explain why bats appeared so suddenly in the fossil record some 50 million years ago.
• Sperm Seals the Deal: A single protein produced by sperm controls the final step in achieving pregnancy, Japanese researchers have discovered. Blocking or promoting the protein could lead to new, hormone-free contraception methods as well as treatments for male infertility.
• Developmental biology: Moonlighting at the pole. Researchers find that protein complex responsible for the bicoid gene may play another role.