Using bioinformatics for better understanding of

genes

Becky SeipeltKarla Marriott

Arlin ToroVilma Martinez

Roger Luihttp://artedi.ebc.uu.se/course/BioInfo-10p-2006/projects/katarzyna/bioinformatics.jpg

DNA RNA PROTEIN Function phenotype

PromotersGene finding

Variation Probability

DOGMA

TranscriptionSplicingEditingModifications

Human Gene Variation

TranslationEditingModificationsStructureComplexes

TRANSLATE

StructureComplexes

1. Gene finding 2. Case study using a normal and a known mutant gene

Ideas

A FEW Resources

Proposed activities

Becky Seipelt, Middle Tennessee State Universityrseipelt@mtsu.edu

• Active learning activity– Perhaps animation comparison

• Give a small sequence file with 2-5 genes within.

• Ask students to figure out how the cell “knows” where a gene is, i.e., where to start and stop transcription, and where to start and stop translation.

• Introduce ‘gene finding’ algorithms for comparison (DOGMA)

• Ask students to compare how “we” and nature differ?

•Honors Genetics (BIOL3250H) •2 blocks of 3 hours•Sophomore-seniors, mostly sophomores•Transcription and translation “learned” at least twice, perhaps more•Goals:

•deeper understanding of processes and regulation•more engaged students

Lab exercise-Mitochondrial DNA Analysis

http://www.edvotek.com/images/332.jpg

Students will use DOGMA to identify

genes that they amplify with PCR

Working with the Sequence

Blast and other analysisevolutionary problems

How this project using DOGMA will help me teaching my genetics course

The next time I teach the part of genomes and proteomes in my genetics course, in the explanation of comparative genomics, I can show similarities between different genomes and introduce them the evolutionary relationships between organisms of different species and the information that some species are more related than others.

Ideas for my courseComputational and systems biology

7-week course.For comp. bio. part, either do sequence alignment problem if more math majors

OR bioinformatics using data and software available on the web like what I have

learned in this conference.

Forensic Biology

• Development of new course targeting seniors and juniors

• Involves lecture and laboratory• Research- DNA sequencing, translation and

transcription to protein• Using software such as DOGMA, Translate, BLAST