Robert W Arnold Week 2
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Aipotu Part III: Molecular Biology
Notes
- Downloaded Aipotu.
- Spent 10 minutes or so getting used to the program, determining how to identify promoters, terminators, exons, introns, etc.
- Pulled up the DNA comparison between the upper gene window and lower gene window in Green 2.
- Upper gene window was blue, lower gene window was yellow, resulted in a combined color of green.
- Found that bases 79 and 80 were not compatible. Upper gene window had AC in 79 and 80 while the lower sequence had GG.
- Switched base number 68 in the lower gene window from an A to a C and then folded the protein.
- This resulted in the lower gene window producing a white color and the combined color of upper and lower to be blue. Possible sign of blue being dominant over white.
- The difference between green and blue was the 11th amino
- Determined the difference from blue and yellow was the 10th amino acid in each sequence. The sequence in the blue protein had Tyr coded for by TAC while the yellow had Trp coded for by TGG.
- The difference in the red strain also occurred in the 10th amino acid which coded for Phe with TTC. The middle base determines whether blue or red. If it is A, the protein is blue and if it is T, it is red.
- Red and blue combined creates a purple color and yellow and red create an orange.
- Results show incomplete dominance with the combination of color.
- Genetically mutated a strain of red protein by adding in a Tyr with TAC before the Phe. This caused the strand to become purple. Self-crossing this plant will create a pure-breeding purple organism.
- Interestingly, when a Trp was also added to the purple flower sequence, the flower became black.
Specific Tasks
- No, all white alleles do not have the same sequence. We found 4 or 5 different strains of white throughout our testing of different protein structures. Some different strains we stumbled upon had amino acid sequences of up to 17 or 18 aa long.
- The DNA sequences for all 4 starting colors were identical for the first 9 amino acids of the chain. Green and blue were identical until amino acid 11 where a Cys was switched for a Trp. When compared to green, yellow switch the 10 and 11 amino acid to TrpCys, red switched to PheCys, and the starting white switched out for ValCys.
- In order to create a pure-breeding, we mutated a red protein strain by adding in a Tyr before the Phe at position 10. This caused the strain to become purple. From here, we self-crossed the organism creating a pure-breeding purple organism.