C2005/F2401 '10 -- Outline For Lecture 16 -- Bacterial & Viral Genetics

Last Posted/Updated 11/04/10 03:54 PM

I. Wrap up of Operons

    A. Weak vs. Strong Promoters -- see notes of Lecture 15.

    B. Induction vs. Repression -- Compare and contrast. Properties of operators, repressors, inducers & co-repressors.

    C. Regulation in general -- which features of prokaryotic regulation (operons) are common to many regulatory systems?

II. How do Bacteria pass on their DNA? Asexual reproduction

III. Introduction to Bacterial Sex & Recombination -- How do bacteria get 'extra' DNA?

IV. Fate of Transferred (extra) DNA -- Plasmids vs Fragments (Handout 16)

    A. Retention of Plasmids -- role of selection.    (16B, bottom)

    B. How is foreign DNA added to the chromosome? Recombination & Crossing Over (Handout 16 A, bottom)

V. How do Bacteria Have Sex? How do they Exchange and/or Transfer genes?

    A. Transformation Revisited

    B. Conjugation  & Plasmids

    C. Transduction -- details next time.

VI.  Complementation & Recombination -- If you add extra copies of genes by genetic engineering or by other means, what happens then? (Handout 16B, top)

Next Time: Wrap up of above, if necessary, including details of viral life cycle. Then discovery & significance of restriction enzymes.  How do you use restriction enzymes to clone genes? How do you analyze the results of restriction enzyme digestion? (Probes & Blots.)