NATS 1575 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Polymerase Chain Reaction, Dna Replication, Glutamine
21 May 2017
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*four types of bases are associated with the dna structure: adenine (a, guanine (g, cytosine (c, thymine (t) Example: g-a-g codes for the amino acid glutamine, while c-g-t codes for alanine. If a nucleotide is changed, for example a t is substituted for a and g-a-g becomes g- T-g, the wrong amino acid is placed in the protein (in this case: glutamine is replaced with valine): as a result, the protein may not function correctly and this is the basis for many diseases and health issues. Recombinant dna relies on the ability of certain chemicals, known as restriction enzymes, to cut dna into fragments that can later be incorporated into another dna strand. Restriction enzymes can be thought of as highly specialized scissors that cut a dna molecule when it recognizes a specific sequence of bases. As the bacteria multiply rapidly, copies of the altered dna are passed on to all descendants.
