• Level of study

    BAC +3

  • ECTS

    5 credits

  • Component

    Faculty of Science

Description

Molecular biology is both a fascinating subject of study in its own right, but it also provides other disciplines in biology (cell biology, genetics, physiology...) with fantastic tools for modifying and quantifying genes and their products.

 

The EU provides a deeper understanding of the mechanisms of organization, maintenance, replication and expression (transcription, post-transcriptional modifications, translation) of eukaryotic genomes.

In particular, the properties of information-carrying macromolecules (DNA, RNA, proteins) will be explored, and how the transactions between them explain the functioning of eukaryotic cells and their adaptation to the environment and to the development of organisms.

In parallel, the main techniques for monitoring or modifying gene expression, or for studying the mechanisms of this expression, will be explained in class and further developed in class by analyzing results.

Thus, the tutorials approach these subjects in the form of (1) exercises leading the students to verify their understanding of the knowledge described above, and (2) experiments extracted from scientific articles to be analyzed. Thus, the basics of scientific reasoning and critical analysis of results will be acquired and/or deepened.

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Objectives

Knowledge:

- Understanding the exceptions and subtleties of genetic information flow, the central "dogma" in eukaryotes

- To know the structure of eukaryotic genomes, their coding and non-coding components, and to understand how their sequence constitutes a fossil record of past molecular events (viral insertions, duplications and gene families,...).

- Know the basic principles of isolation techniques (cloning vs. polony) and DNA sequencing (Sanger, pyrophosphate, nanopore).

- To know the different levels of eukaryotic chromatin compaction, and their impact on gene expression

- Know the mechanisms and minimal machinery of eukaryotic genome replication.

- Understand the challenges of faithful replication, at each S phase, of an extended, fragmented, linear genome, and what happens when these regulations fail.

- Know the main eukaryotic DNA repair pathways, what damage they repair, what the cost is (fidelity...), and what happens when they fail.

- Know the mechanisms and actors of transcription (initiation, elongation, termination) in eukaryotes

- Know the steps and actors of the activation of a eukaryotic promoter of class I, II, III.

- Know the families of general and specific eukaryotic transcription factors and their modes of action, as well as the concepts of coactivators/corepressors and their impact on chromatin remodeling.

- To know the mechanisms and actors of post-transcriptional modifications in eukaryotes, as well as the regulatory RNAs

- To know the mechanisms and actors of translation in eukaryotes

- Understand and explain how all the steps in eukaryotic gene expression allow for quantitative and qualitative fine-tuning of the response to a stimulus.

Know-how:

- Know the techniques based on immunoprecipitation, how they account for protein/protein and protein/nucleic acid interactions, and how to analyze the results

- Know how to recognize and read a sequencing result (Sanger, pyrophosphate, nanopore).

- Calculate the length of a nucleic acid molecule of n nucleotides; use it to calculate DNA compaction rates, replication rates, ...

- Know how to interpret techniques for studying replication dynamics on individual DNA fibers or populations of cells

- Interpret simple chromatin nuclease digestion experiments and understand how this determines chromatin status and gene activation status

- Know how to interpret techniques to study transcription regulation (promoter mutagenesis, reporter genes, G-less cassette,...)

- Know how to choose the electrophoresis technique to use for each type of macromolecule and analyze complex results

- Interpret in vitro splicing experiments and other experiments to monitor post-transcriptional modifications and their regulation

- To know how to interpret experiments aimed at following the translation and its regulations.

- Know how to describe and interpret a figure: understand the purpose of the experiment and the technique used, identify the variables, understand the purpose of a positive control and a negative control, follow scientific logic (description of results followed by their interpretation)

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Necessary pre-requisites

Basic knowledge of nucleic acid and protein biochemistry, molecular biology and genetics.

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