RNA splicing

Introduction Gene drives are a controversial new invention made to affect genes of a species, which can potentially eliminate animal spread diseases. A gene drive refers to a genetic system that manipulates a gene, guaranteeing all offspring to contain a certain dominant trait. As the trait is dominant it eventually spreads throughout the whole species, allowing them to all contain the manipulated trait. Scientists have designed this in order to eliminate mosquito-transmitted diseases such as…

Chirality is a geometric property of some molecules and ions. A chiral molecule/ion is non- superimposable on its mirror image. The presence of an asymmetric carbon atom is one of several structural features that induce chirality in organic and inorganic molecules. Many biologically active molecules are chiral, including the naturally occurring amino acids (the building blocks of proteins) and sugars. In biological systems, most of these compounds are of the same chirality: most amino acids are…

Mutations are random. There are several reasons for mutations to occur. This essay will discuss what is a mutation, furthermore, it will examine different types of mutations that can occur, and it will inform you about how helpful and harmful mutations really are. Mutation is a change that occurs in the deoxyribonucleic acid sequence, gene or structure, due to mistakes that occur when the DNA is transcripted or because of environmental changes. Mutation occurs when there is a mistake in the…

Organelle Failure Nucleus: The nucleus of a cell is, without doubt, one of the most important parts of the cell. The nucleus instructs every single part of the cell what to do, and what the different organelles need to do. The nucleus includes chromatin (protein and DNA). It also contains Nucleolus (nucleoli is plural). These nucleoli are responsible for ribosome production. If the nucleus were to suddenly malfunction, this would mean that the cell would have no directions, and nothing to…

Epigenetics, a contemporary and often misunderstood topic in the field of biology, was first defined in the early 1940s as “the branch of biology which studies the causal interactions between genes and their products with bring the phenotype into being” (Dupont 2009). Since then, as understanding of the human genome has developed and grown, a complex array of errors and dysfunctions in the processes of gene regulation, expression, and replication have been shown to cause, or correlate strongly…

Before we can talk about what a polymer is, we need to know about ATOMS and ELEMENTS and MOLECULES. To learn about atoms and elements and molecules, click here. Paul Lemur This is PAUL LEMUR. He's a lemur named Paul. Polymers are made up of many many molecules all strung together to form really long chains (and sometimes more complicated structures, too). What makes polymers so fun is that how they act depends on what kinds of molecules they're made up of and how they're put together. The…

Mitochondria was first discovered in 1856 by Swiss anatomist Van Kölliker. Dr. Kölliker while he was conducting a study on muscle tissue (Giezen, Page 1). He found these “sacrosomes” which would later become known as mitochondria. When scientist first started discovering mitochondria they were extremely fascinated with all of the various structures of the mitochondria (Giezen, Page 1). Early scientist posted numerous theories of the origin of mitochondria. One of these theories was that…

In the spring of 1953 James Watson and Francis Crick discovered the true structure of deoxyribose nucleic acid (DNA) utilizing theoretical chemistry and borrowed X-ray crystallography images. They postulated that the structure of DNA contained two helical chains that run in opposite directions of one another. They also stated, in contrast to Linus Pauling’s structure, that due to the repulsive forces between the negatively charged phosphate groups the nitrogenous bases would be located on the…

Previously we were taught that our DNA is what make us unique. But what if I told you that our DNA didn’t do all the work? There is a protein in our bodies that makes our DNA coding complete and it’s called an epigenome. There are two proteins that make up one protein of a epigenome and they are histones. They are wrapped around the DNA and the Methyl group that are attached to it. Of course we are taught that our DNA makes up who we are as far as characteristics; However, epigenetics explain…

The RNA worlds together with the DNA world are known to have numerous differences as well as similarities with the cell nature as well as the varied virus character demands pointing to the viruses coming first. To a degree, the theories that designate this phenomenon have contended on the dissimilar nature of viruses, as a crucial factor that illustrates the viruses coming first (Woese, 1987). In the biosphere of microbes, whereas viruses are regarded as minuscule in size, the Pithovirus is…