15.

1 Notes

 Be able to explain these terms:

1. One-gene, one-enzyme hypothesis.
2. One-gene, one polypeptide hypothesis
3. Central dogma.
4. codon, start codon and stop codon.
 Be able to define and recognize transcription and translation.
 Know which four nucleotide bases are present in RNA, and what their
relationship is to the nucleotide bases present in DNA.
 If given a strand of DNA and using a table of codons and amino acids,
be able to describe the steps and products of transcription and
translation.

Proteins are specified by Genes

o Minimal medium: A medium that has lots of inorganic salts, a carbon source
(like sucrose) and biotin (a vitamin)
 Beadle and Tatum reasoned that mutations in genes involved in
biosynthesis of those molecules would result in new requirements for
chemical nutrients in medium in order for mutant strains to grow
o Auxotrophs: a mutant organism (especially a bacterium or fungus) that
requires a particular additional nutrient which the normal strain does not.
o
 Aka Auxotrophic mutants or nutritional mutants
 B+T realized that auxotrophs should not be able to grow in MM, so they
devised method to find them
 Exposed spores of Neurospora to X rays (to cause mutations)
 Plated mutagenized spores on complete medium (MM +
compounds that Neurospora normally synthesize from MM
components)
 Carried out a genetic screen
 Genetic Screen: A technique to search through mutagenized
population of organisms to find individuals with mutant
phenotypes of interest
o Trying to find auxotrophic mutants
o Found out that auxotrophic mutants required Vitamin B6,
vitamin B1, and para aminobenzoic acid
o Nutrients needed by utant strains were synthesized by
wild-type Neurospora, but that synthesis was blocked in
mutant strains (b/c of genetic mutations)
 Tested colonies that grew on CM to see if they could grow on MM
One gene-One enzyme hypothesis: Each gene encodes a single enzyme
o Most enzymes are one form of proteins
 Carry out many vital functions
 o Polypeptides:
 Consists more than one subunit
 Functional protein
 Hemoglobin as an example:
 Made up of 4 polypeptides, two alphas, two betas
 Ability of hemoglobin to transport oxygen
o functional property belonging only to complete protein,
not to any polypeptide individually
 Different gene encodes each distinct polypeptide, meaning two
different genes needed to specify hemoglobin protein
o One gene-one polypeptide hypothesis:
 A large class of genes exists in which each gene controls the synthesis of,
or the activity of, but a single polypeptide
The Pathway From Gene to Polypeptide Involves Transcription and Translation
 Transcription: mechanism by which information encoded in DNA is made into
complementary RNA copy
o Information in one nucleic acid type is transferred to another nucleic acid type
o Enzyme RNA polymerase copies DNA sequence of gene into RNA sequence
 Only one of two strands--template strand copied into RNA strand, and
only part of DNA sequence of genome is copied into any cell at any given
time
 RNA polymerase reads from 3’ to 5’ direction of DNA strand, and makes
complementary 5’ to 3’ RNA strand

o Protein coding gene: Gene encoding polypeptide

o mRNA messenger RNA: RNA transcribed from protein-coding gene
 Translation: Use of information encoded in RNA molecule to assemble amino acids into
polypeptide
o Information in a nucleic acid, in form of nucleotides, is converted into amino
acids
o mRNA associates with ribosome, which links specified amino acids into
polypeptide chains
 Transcription and translation occurs in all organisms
o Prokaryotes vs Eukaryotes:
 In eukaryotes, transcription in nucleus produces a precursor-mRNA that
must be altered to generate functional mRNA
 Each end of pre mRNA is modified, then extra segments within its
sequence removed by RNA processing
 Result is functional mRNA that exits nucleus and is translated in
cytoplasm
 In prokaryotes, transcription in cytoplasm produces functional
mRNA directly without modifications
 Some genes encode things other than polypeptides
 o Some encode noncoding RNAs
 Noncoding RNAs: Various RNA molecules that are not translated to
produce polypeptides
 Plays role in transcription and transltion and in some other
proceses in cell like regulation of gene expression

 Central dogma: DNARNAProtein (the process by which DNA is transcribed into RNA
and when RNA is translated into polypeptides)
o DNARNAProtein
o More appropriately:
 DNARNAPolypeptide
The Genetic Code is Written in Three-Letter Words Using a Four-Letter Alphabet
 Genetic code: Nucleotide information that specifies amino acid sequence of
polypeptide
o Four bases in RNA (A, U, G, and C) would need to be used in combos of at least
three to provide capacity to code for 20 different amino acids
 Genetic code is a three letter code
o Codon: A three letter word of genetic code
 3 letter codons transcribed into complementary 3 letter RNA codons
 Similar to DNA replication except that in mRNA, complement to
adenine in template strand is uracil, not thymine
 How do RNA codons correspond to amino acids?
 Artificial mRNAs of codon length could bind to ribosomes in a test
tube and cause a single transfer RNA (tRNA helps decode mRNA
into protein) to bind to ribosome
Features of the Genetic Code
 Genetic code is a three-letter code
 The genetic code has no commas– words of nucleic acid code are sequential
o No indicators like molecular commas to mark end of one codon and beginning of
next
 Genetic code is universal
o Same codons specify same amino acids in all living organisms and also in viruses
o Eukaryotic translation machinery can read prokaryotic mRNA
 so eukaryotes can make same polypeptide as prokaryote and vice versa
 The genetic code is degenerate (redundant)—one amino acid can be represented by
multiple codons that differ in the third base.
o Only methionine and tryptophan are specified by single codon
 All rest are each represented by more than one codon
 Comes about because of degeneracy
 Degeneracy: redundancy of the genetic code, exhibited
as the multiplicity of three-codon combinations
specifying an amino acid.
 Genetic code has stop and start signals
o Sense codons: 61 codons that specify amino acids
 Start codon or initiator codon: Initial signal found on mRNA that
indicates the start of the translation from mRNA to polypeptide sequence
 Found on mRNA strand
 One example is AUG, specifying the amino acid methionine
o First codon read in mRNA in translation in both prokaryote
and eukaryotes
 Stop or nonsense or termination codons: Act as periods to indicate end
of a polypeptide encoding sentence during translation
 UAA, UAG, and UGA
o Three codons that do not specify for any amino acid
o Genetic code can only be read only by starting at right place
 At first base of first three-letter codons at beginning of coded message
 Reading three nucleotides at a time
o Reading frame: Linear sequence of codons in mRNA that specify amino acids
during translation (beginning at particular start codon).
 Only one correct reading frame for each mRNA
 Ie you need to start and end on the right codon
