SLE111

Cells and Genes 2015

Lecture Outlines

Things to note:
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The following lecture outlines are indicative of what will be discussed in the
lectures; one lecture may overlap with another.
The Reading sections are minimal readings from the textbook, Campbell Biology
Edition 10, Reece JB & Meyers, N et al. 2015.
There may be figures shown in lectures that are not directly from the relevant
textbook chapters. You should read the text around such figures.
Always refer to the lectures for what is examinable.
The Assessing and Applying your Knowledge sections give a minimal test of your
knowledge. You should also see the Mastering Biology website (on CloudDeakin)
for more practice quiz questions, as well as tutorials.



Topic 1, Cell Biology

Lecture 1: Introduction to Cells and Genes

Lecture 2: Molecules of life
Lectures 3, 4: Concepts of Cell Biology; Prokaryotic cells
Lectures 5, 6: Eukaryotic cells
Lecture 7: Origin of Life
Lecture 8: Cellular membranes
Lecture 9: Enzyme structure and function
Lectures 10-12: Metabolism
Lecture 13: Cell Communication
Lecture 14: Cell Cycle and Division
Class Test will cover lectures 1-14. Note that these topics are also assessable in the
final exam.

Topic 2, Genetics and biotechnology

Lecture 15: Chromosomes, sexual reproduction and meiosis

Lectures 16, 17: Mendelian genetics
Lectures 18, 19: Different modes of inheritance
Lecture 20: Linkage
Lecture 21: Problem solving in genetics
Lectures 22: Molecular genetics: DNA is the carrier of genetic information
Lectures 23, 24: Gene expression
Lecture 25: Translation, mutation, and errors in protein synthesis
Lecture 26: Introduction to bioinformatics
Lecture 27: Regulation of gene expression
Lecture 28: Viruses
Lectures 29, 30: Recombinant DNA technology
Lectures 31, 32: DNA technology: applications and issues

Lecture 1: Introduction to Cells and Genes

How the unit is run: important information about contacts, lectures, practical classes,
assessment, CloudDeakin.
Biology is the study of all living things.
The living world consists of a hierarchy ranging from molecules to the organisms that form a
community.

Reading: Chapter 1, pp. 118. For your interest and education, you are encouraged to read all of
Chapter 1.
Assessing and applying your knowledge
1.
2.

What are the properties of life?

What is meant by the expression hierarchy of biological organisation?

Lecture 2: Molecules of life

The characteristics of life.

Cells are the basic units of life.
Water, a polar molecule, is essential to life on Earth.
Acids, bases and the concept of pH.
Carbon is a versatile building block for molecules.
Most macromolecules are polymers, built from monomers.
Carbohydrates serve as fuel and building material.
Lipids are a diverse group of hydrophobic molecules.
Proteins have many structures, resulting in a wide range of functions.
Nucleic acids store and transmit hereditary information.
DNA contains the blueprint for life.
DNA is transcribed into mRNA, and mRNA is translated into protein (amino acids).

Reading: Chapters 2, 3, 4, 5 (parts that are referred to in lecture figures).

Assessing and applying your knowledge
Complete the end-of chapter Test your Understanding questions: Ch. 2, Q 4; Ch. 3, Qs 1-3; Ch. 5,
Qs 1, 3, 4, 5.

Lectures 3 & 4: Concepts of Cell Biology; the diversity and
structure of prokaryotes

Cells are diverse in structure and function.

Prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells share many features, but have distinct differences.
Prokaryotes are the simplest cells.
The Bacteria and the Archaea are the two domains of Prokaryotes.
All kingdoms of life evolved from ancient prokaryotes.
Prokaryotes have cell envelopes (membranes and walls), cytoplasm, ribosomes, pili and
flagella.
DNA is present in most prokaryotes as a single, circular chromosomeand sometimes also
in plasmids.
Different types of bacteria can be distinguished from one another on the basis of
appearance, by the use of stains and by their nutrient requirements.
Replication is by binary fission.
Formation of endospores (e.g. Anthrax) allows survival under adverse conditions.
Bacteria cause about half of all human diseases.
Not all bacteria are pathogens. Some are part of the normal flora.
Some bacteria are beneficial to other organisms, some are of economic importance.
Antibiotics of natural and synthetic origin are used to combat bacteria.

Reading: Concepts 6.1, 6.2; chapter 27.

Assessing and applying your knowledge
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2.
3.
4.

What are the major cellular features of prokaryotic cells?

Chapter 27, p. 598: Test your Understanding questions 2, 4, 5, 6.
How do binary fission and endospore formation differ?
What are the three different ways in which pathogenic bacteria cause symptoms of
disease?

Lectures 5, 6: The structure and functions of eukaryotic cells

Eukaryotic cell structure includes organelles within the cytoplasm and a cytoskeleton; there
are some differences between animal and plant cells.
Membranes partition the cell into compartments: the nucleus, endoplasmic reticulum, Golgi
apparatus, vacuoles and the lysosomes, each with specialised functions.
The nucleus contains DNA bound up as chromatin, and the nucleolus.
Ribosomes have an important role in protein synthesis.
Mitochondria and chloroplasts come from endosymbiosis of free-living bacteria; they have
their own DNA and are key structures in the energy transformations in cells.
The cytoskeleton is a network of tubules and filaments in the cytoplasm that provides
structural support and has roles in transport.
In multicellular organisms, cells are interconnected.

Reading: Concepts 6.3 to 6.7.

Assessing and applying your knowledge

1.
2.
3.
4.

Chapter 6: Test your Understanding questions 1 - 8.

What are the main cellular features of eukaryotic cells?
What are the main distinctions between eukaryotic and prokaryotic cells?
Describe the function of four eukaryotic cell organelles.

Lecture 7: Origin of life

Life probably evolved on Earth about 3,500,000,000 years ago

The first cells were products of chemical evolution.
RNA was probably the first genetic material.

Reading: Concepts 4.1, 25.1.

Assessing and applying your knowledge
1.

What was the flawed assumption in the Miller and Urey experiment of the 1950s?

Lecture 8: Structure and functions of cellular membranes

Cells are bounded by membranes that help maintain the internal environment.
Membranes are composed of lipids, proteins and carbohydrates.
Proteins have a variety of functions in cell membranes: peripheral proteins act as receptors,
adhesion molecules or recognition sites; integral proteins form ion channels and/or are
enzymes.
Organisation of the cell membrane results in selective permeability.
Substances cross the membrane by passive or facilitated diffusion, active transport,
endocytosis or exocytosis.
Osmosis involves the movement of water across cell membranes.
Cell survival depends on balancing water uptake and loss.

Reading: Chapter 7.
Assessing and applying your knowledge
1.
2.

3.

Chapter 7: Test your Understanding questions 1 - 6.

In a 0.9% solution of sodium chloride, human red blood cells neither shrink nor swell
significantly. What would happen if they were placed in a solution of 0.4% sodium
chloride?
How do oxygen, water, sodium and glucose cross cell membranes?

Lecture 9: The role of enzymes

Enzymes are nearly always proteins.

In chemical reactions, enzymes are catalysts for the conversion of substrates to products.
A catalyst lowers activation energy.
Enzyme have a tertiary and quaternary structure (i.e. they are 3-D and have to maintain a
specific shape to function).
A substrate binds to the active site of an enzyme.
pH and temperature changes affect enzyme activity.
Enzymes can be inhibited or can exist in active and inactive forms.
Some enzymes require cofactors or coenzymes. Vitamins are coenzymes or part of
coenzymes.
Metabolic pathways involve sequential enzymatic reactions.

Reading: Concept 5.4; chapter 8.

Assessing and applying your knowledge
1.
2.

Under what conditions would a protein be denatured? Is such a change irreversible?

Chapter 8: Test your Understanding questions 4, 5, 7.

Lectures 1012: Metabolism (Cellular Respiration and

Fermentation)

Cells need a constant supply of chemical energy to stay alive.

Energy is stored as sugars and other organic molecules.
Energy is mostly converted into ATP for utilisation by the cell.
In cellular respiration, glucose is broken down and the chemical energy released is used to
synthesise ATP; some energy is lost as heat.
Glycolysis, which occurs in the cytoplasm, converts glucose to pyruvic acid and does not
require oxygen.
Pyruvic acid diffuses into the mitochondrion where it is further broken down releasing
carbon dioxide and electrons.
The electrons are transferred to an electron transport chain and ultimately to oxygen.
Energy released in the transfer of electrons is used to pump protons out of the matrix and
across the inner mitochondrial membrane.
The protons then diffuse back through the inner membrane down a concentration gradient,
providing the energy for the synthesis of large amounts of ATP by the enzyme ATP synthase.
When the supply of oxygen to a cell is low, pyruvic acid is converted to lactic acid in animal
cells (anaerobic respiration) and to ethanol in plant cells (fermentation).
Cells requiring an enormous amount of energy very rapidly (such as muscle cells of a
sprinter) can utilise anaerobic as well as aerobic respiration.
Certain poisons (e.g. cyanide) interrupt cellular respiration.

Cells use many organic molecules as fuel for cellular respiration.

In starvation, structural proteins such as in muscles may be utilised as a source of energy.
Cells also use some of the molecules produced in cellular respiration to synthesise needed
macromolecules.

Reading: chapter 9.
Assessing and applying your knowledge
1.
2.
3.
4.

5.

Chapter 9: Test your Understanding questions 1 - 7, 12, 13.

Where do the atoms in carbon dioxide originate during cellular respiration?
Why do we shiver when we are cold? (Hint: our muscles are contracting and using up
more energy, which would come from increasing the rate of cellular respiration.)
Sports psychologists at the Olympic training centre wanted to monitor athletes to
determine at what point their muscles were functioning anaerobically. For which one of
the following chemicals would they be looking to measure a build-up: ATP, lactic acid,
carbon dioxide, ADP or oxygen?
When the poison cyanide blocks the electron transport chain, glycolysis and the citric
acid cycle grind to a halt as well. Why do you think they stop?

Lecture 13: Cell communication

External signals are converted into responses within the cell.

Cells of multi-cellular organisms constantly receive signals that keep them alive and
functioning
Local- and long-distance signalling.
Many signalling systems in cells are conserved
The same signalling system can lead to different responses in different cells
The three stages of cell signalling: reception, transduction, response.
Cells have signalling systems that can lead to sex, growth, differentiation, movement, self-
destruction

Reading: chapter 11.

Assessing and applying your knowledge
Test your Understanding questions 1, 2, 4, Scientific enquiry question; chapter 11.
1. What are the three main stages of cell signalling?
2. Giving examples, what are the differences between local signalling and long distance
signalling.
3. Describe how a signal transduction pathway can amplify the original single received by a cell.

Lecture 14: Cell division and the cell cycle

DNA replicates prior to cell division.

Cells divide by binary fission, mitosis or meiosis combined with cytokinesis.
Mitosis can be divided into phases.
Cell division is usually controlled.
Control of cell division is lost in cancer cells.
Anti-mitotic drugs are used in cancer chemotherapy.

Reading: chapter 12.

Assessing and applying your knowledge
Test your Understanding questions 1 - 9.

Lecture 15: Chromosomes, sexual reproduction and meiosis

Offspring acquire genes from parents by inheriting chromosomes.

The human karyotype: looking at human chromosomes.
Preparing karyotypes to identify chromosomal abnormalities.
The significance of homologous pairs of chromosomes.
Autosomes and sex chromosomes.
Numbers of chromosomes in somatic cells vs gametes.
Gametes form in a special process of cell division called meiosis.
Crossing over occurs during meiosis, which increases genetic variation.
Down syndrome, an outcome of the failure of meiosis to accurately segregate
chromosomes.

Reading: chapter 13.

Assessing and applying your knowledge
Test your Understanding questions 1 8.

Lectures 16, 17: Mendelian genetics

The concepts of genotype and phenotype.

Alleles: different forms of genes; significance of dominance, recessiveness, heterozygosity
and homozygosity.
Single gene inheritance.
Mendels experiments to explain inheritance.
Use of Punnett squares to determine the probability of inheriting traits.
Determination of genotype by test crosses.
Investigating the inheritance of two genes that are on different chromosomes (independent
assortment).
Pedigree analysis reveals Mendelian patterns in human inheritance.

Reading: Chapter 14: Concepts 14.1, 14.2.

Assessing and applying your knowledge
Test your Understanding questions 1 7. Read the Tips for Genetics Problems (p. 290).

Lectures 18, 19: Different modes of inheritance

Incomplete dominance (e.g. flower colouring).

Codominance (e.g. MN blood groups).
Multiple alleles (e.g. ABO blood groups).
Pleiotropy: one allele affects multiple characteristics (e.g. sickle-cell anaemia).
Polygenic inheritance: one trait is affected by many alleles (e.g. skin colour).
Maternal inheritance in mitochondria.

Reading: Chapter 14: Concepts 14.3, 14.4.

Assessing and applying your knowledge
Test your Understanding questions 8 14.

Lecture 20: Linkage

Linkage: the inheritance of two genes that are on the same chromosome.
Linked genes tend to be inherited together.
Crossing over causes genetic recombination.
Recombination data can be used to map genes.
Sex-linked genes have unique patterns of inheritance.

Reading: chapter 15
Assessing and applying your knowledge
Test your Understanding questions 1 9.

Lecture 21: Problem solving in genetics

Lecture 22: DNA is the carrier of genetic information

Scientific experiments provided information that DNA was the hereditary material.
The structure of DNA, Chargaffs rules.
DNA is packaged into chromosomes.
The double-stranded nature of the DNA helix suggests possible mechanisms for DNA
replication.
Replication of DNA is remarkably accurate.
A team of enzymes and other proteins functions in replication.
Enzymes also proofread DNA and repair damage to existing DNA.

Reading: chapter 16.

Assessing and applying your knowledge
Test your Understanding questions 1 9.

Lectures 23, 24: Gene expression - From gene to protein

Studies of inherited metabolic diseases showed the connection between genes and proteins.
The flow of information from genes to proteins occurs during transcription and translation.
The structure and roles of RNA.
The genetic code.
Transcription: the synthesis of messenger RNA from a DNA template.
RNA processing, splicing.
Translation: the synthesis of polypeptides (which join to form proteins) from an RNA
template.

Reading: chapter 17: Concepts 17.1 17.4.

Assessing and applying your knowledge
Please complete the following:
1.
2.

Test your Understanding questions 1 6.

Draw a flow diagram to show the flow of information in a cell from DNA to the proteins
being manufactured in the cytoplasm.

Lecture 25: Translation, mutation and errors in protein

synthesis

Mutations are changes in the sequence of DNA.

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There are different types of mutations ranging from point mutations to large deletions of
DNA.
Mutation human genes can cause genetic disorders and cancer.
Many different agents can induce mutations.
Mutagens are agents that cause changes in the DNA code.
Oncogenes and tumour suppressor genes are important in cancer.
Transcription errors found Thalassemia genes cause changes in the globin protein that
adversely affect the function of haemoglobin.

Reading: chapter 17, Concepts 17.5 17.6; chapter 18, Concept 18.5.
Assessing and applying your knowledge
Complete the following:
1.
2.

3.

Test your Understanding questions 7, 8.

A single type of cancer such as leukaemia can have alternative causes: radiation,
chemicals or even viruses. Can you explain how such different factors can all trigger the
same disease, with the same characteristics and symptoms?
How have mutations contributed to the evolution of living organisms?

Lecture 26: Bioinformatics Introduction

Databases, such as GenBank (accessed through the NCBI), store a wealth of genetic
information that is freely accessible.
Basic Local Alignment Search Tool (BLAST) allows the retrieval of how gene sequences.
GenBank and how to read and interpret entries.

Reading, Concepts 21.1, 21.2

Assessing and applying your knowledge
Please complete the following:
1.

What type of BLAST search would you perform on the sequence, MRITGANRIL? (Hint, is
this nucleotides or amino acids?)

Lecture 27: Regulation of gene expression

The study of gene expression has informed the field of developmental biology.
Different call types result from differential gene expression in cells with the same DNA.
Specialised cells express only a fraction of their genes.
Expression of genes can be regulated at different levels.
Organisation of chromatin can influence gene expression.

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Methylation and histone acetylation affect transcription of genes

Genomic imprinting and epigenetic inheritance
Gene splicing creates variation in mRNA molecules from the same gene.
Transcription factors, which bind to DNA, can alter transcription.
Hormones and environmental factors can affect gene transcription.
Post-translational regulation of proteins influences their activity.

Reading: chapter 18, concepts 18.1 18.4.

Assessing and applying your knowledge
Complete the following:
1.
2.

Test your Understanding questions 2, 3, 5, 8, 9, 10, chapter 18.

Discuss the different mechanisms by which gene expression can be regulated.

Lecture 28: Viruses

Viruses consist of a nucleic acid surrounded by a protein coat

Viruses replicate only in host cells
Lytic and lysogenic cycles.
Viruses, disease and cancer (e.g. HIV, Hepatitis B, tumour viruses).

Reading: chapter 19.

Assessing and applying your knowledge
Test your Understanding questions, chapter 19.
Outline how a retrovirus reproduces in a host cell, indicating the role of the viral enzyme reverse
transcriptase.

Lectures 29, 30: Recombinant DNA technologies

The tool kit for DNA technology: restriction enzymes, a vector and a host cell.
Bacterial plasmids and viruses as vectors to transfer DNA sequences into cells.
Use of restriction enzymes to cut and join DNA.
Reverse transcriptase is a key enzyme.
cDNA, a DNA sequence made from mRNA, is also used for cloning.
Cloned genes can be stored as libraries.
A genomic library contains a copy of all DNA from an organisms genome.
A cDNA library contains sequences that are translated.
Gene cloning has many applications.
Gene probes: methods for detecting specific genes in DNA libraries and in chromosomes.

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The polymerase chain reactionmaking more DNA.

Restriction fragment length analysis using Southern blotting can be used to analyse DNA
sequences for fingerprinting or detection of mutations causing diseases.
DNA sequencing

Reading: chapter 20, concepts 20.1, 20.2.

Assessing and applying your knowledge
Please complete the following:
1.
2.
3.
4.

Test your Understanding questions 1, 2, 5, 6, 8, 12.

What is the difference between DNA and cDNA? How is cDNA synthesised?
Explain the procedure employed to search a library of cloned genes for a specific gene.
Explain how to engineer E. coli to produce human growth hormone, using the following:
E. coli that contain plasmids, DNA carrying a gene for GH, DNA ligase, a restriction
enzyme, equipment for manipulating and growing bacteria, a method for extracting and
purifying a hormone.

Lectures 31, 32: Applications and issues of DNA technology.

Genome projects provide powerful information

Genomics and proteomics can be used to look at large sets of data
Mass production of proteins, often for medical purposes
Transgenic plants and animals
Cloning can be used to make identical copies of individuals.
Stem cells have the potential to develop into many tissue types.
Gene therapy
DNA fingerprinting can be used to solve crimes
DNA technology raises important concerns
Regulation of the uses of genetically modified organisms.

Reading: chapter 20, concepts 20.3, 20.4; concept 21.1

Assessing and applying your knowledge
Please complete the following:
1 Which component of a sample of blood would be used for DNA fingerprinting?
1.
Why is it possible to produce human proteins from bacterial cells that have little
resemblance to human cells?
1.
Do you think that it is ethical to introduce defective genes into animals to understand
human diseases?
2.
Should genetically modified crops be planted?
3.
What might be some adverse environmental effects of genetically modified organisms?

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