Biochemistry and Molecular Biology

I am starting my junior year now working on my biology degree. I started my molecular biology course today and thought I should join a forum to further educate myself with the topics you all like to discuss. Anyway, we will be working on a lab (one I'm sure most of you had done) in your molecular bio class. We will be cloning a Drosophila gene and fuse to GFP. Then design an experiment that uses the GFP-tagged protein. We have to come up with a YFG. Professor also told us to look for proteins that are likely to be synthesized in the Kc167 cells. I understand that I should choose a particular gene I should be interested in. I was just curious with what kind of ge…

First we thought the genome would let us know everything about ourselves and lead to personalized medicine. Now we have the epigenome: chemical modifications in the DNA that affect what information is used from it, without changing the information content. Epigenomic changes can happen because of our environment, stress, ... and in some cases it is the cause of different kinds of cancers. Below is a link that aims at explaining what it is and how it can affect our lives. What do you think about it? You can't always blame your parents

Hi all. I'm trying to determine the intracellular iron concentration of bacterial cells through the TPTZ method. I was wondering if you have any suggestions regarding: 1. When I add the reaction mixture (classical FRAP reagent + ascorbic acid 1%) to a serial dillution of cell lysates, the more concentrated developed turbidity and no color and the less concentrated no color. The reaction with the iron standards worked just fine, so i think it's not the reagent. Any ideas on how to overcome the turbidity issue? 2. A reliable method to extract all the iron content from cell lysates, including heme proteins and other iron-binding proteins.

Is there any limits to the modification of T Cells and fighting cancers or perhaps immune deficieancy disorders? Am I asking a question that is too early for trials/experiments? I was wondering if they may be modified to fight STD's?

This is just a humorous post not to be taken seriously,, If it needs to be moved please dear moderator move it to the appropriate sub-forum Alan McDougall The Mighty Cockroach Humans have walked on the moon, made atomic weapons and conquered many awful diseases and overcome all sorts of evil, but sadly! Alas! the mightily cockroach continues to reign over all it surveys, in spite of all of humanity best efforts, over thousands of years, to eliminate these little hideous, monstrous little beasties from our domains. At night we switch on the kitchen light and what do we see to our unspeakable horror and disgust? Thousands of cockroaches running wild, defilin…

Hello, I am looking for a software to analyze a large number of files from a screening analysis of TLDA. We have a Workflow in R for analyzing exported .txt files, but we haven't software to analyze all the plates at once in order to analyze the amplification curves. There is software to scan files .sds (Applied Biosystems qPCR device), but not files .eds (new file format exported by Viia7). 2 questions: Does anyone know a software for the analysis of a large number of files .eds (> 70 plates)? If not, is it possible to convert .eds in .sds? thank you

does anyone know?

I Really didn`t know where to put this question, but here seemed the most likely spot. considering all the millions of different chemicals in the edible foods that we eat, how is it possible that seemingly NON of these when combined cause a "reaction" making toxins of some sort? are there any edible foods that eaten singularly are safe, but when eaten together make a Poison or a Toxin? or maybe foods that are safe when raw but break down into toxins when cooked?

if anyone can surely answer this....

please help me

Hello, firstly if this is the wrong place for my question I apologize ahead of time, however google directed me to this link after searching microbiology forums so I will at least attempt to seek some help. I am wondering if anyone has any working knowledge on SDA/LMDA media and could possibly field some questions. Google is surprisingly dry on the topic, there were some links but all back to the site where I purchased the media, and their information is helpful to a point but not sufficiently. Thank you ahead of time!

I had this taught many times please reply and help me

Hello, I was thinking about the self assembly proteins and I can't figure how this process follow the second law of thermodynamics. With the knowledge I have, this proteins form their tertiary structure without involving any enzymes or molecules, they simply form hydrogen bonds or Van der Waals interactions. It looks like a local situation of order without a consequential universe disorder. Obviously I miss something, thanks for the answers

An amoeba can send out pseudopodia to ingest food. What is the mechanism that drives the amoeba to experience "hunger"? In the absence of taste buds or their equivalent, and the absence of gastric juices etc what stimulates the amoeba to "sense" food? Please advise. Thanks in advance.

I would love to have a quick reference for my plant biochemistry queries and I would like it from a source that is up-to-date and thorough. Bonus points if it covers soil and microbe interaction as well. Thanks for your time and happy holidays!

I ran dna in a 1% agaraose gel and in 1x TAE, i saw a strange blue region somewhere in the middle of the gel. I used ethidium bromide to visualize DNA. what could that blue region be? I tried to move gel around thinking that it may be the UV light that i am using, but that did not change. I even used another UV machine and had same result.

Hi, I observed dark shadows in the loading well region of the gel and extra bands in all lanes, even for blank. My usual bands still get separated as per normal. I tried loading the same prepared solutions the next day and run using the same power pack but a freshly prepared running buffer, everything goes back to normal. Please see file attached for the atypical gel image. Anyone knows what went wrong on the first day? Thanks! SDS-PAGE gel.doc

Hi guys, I was wondering if I could gt some help filling in some fundamental grey areas in my understanding of DNA replication? DNA replication - eukaryotic (going to write my hazy understanding of the process) a. Numerous origins of replication; DNA helicase binds here and unwinds helix whilst breaking hydrogen bonds between bases - single stranded binding proteins attach. - Major point of confusion - What initially melts the double helix? - What signals helicase to bind? - Are all points of origin the same sequence (well the same two complimentary sequences) - At what point does topoisomerase bind? - I thought helicase was boun…

Hey all I would like to find a way to manipulate the intracellular pH of a cell without affect all the cells in my culture. I know I can use a number of approaches to acidify of alkalinize my culture be I was hoping to find a method that would involve the transfection of something genetically encoded. This would give me modulation of intracellular pH in a small percentage of my cells in my culture. Any thoughts would be much appreciated. Cheers,

Hi there, Was hoping someone could offer some assistance. I need to measure deferoxamine mesylate concentration in solution. Is there any way that this can be produced spectrometrically?

We eat and drink in order to obtain lipids, carbohydrates, minerals, vitamins, amino acids, water, and dietary fiber. Water farms of artificial sea water or artificial lake water could cultivate microorganism such as photosynthetic plankton (phytoplankton) and many others. A variety of microorganisms could get us all of the kinds of nutrients that we need without the weather risks and with potentially lower expense. Problems include getting things we do not need. For instance, diatoms (a kind of phytoplankton) are dependent upon cadmium for some of their enzymes. Cadmium is toxic to humans. Most people have 61 types of elements in our organs and blood. We only need…

Is it generally recognized that eating proteins does nothing good for us until we hydrolyze those proteins? People are sometimes "allergic" to foods and sometimes get sick - I think from the proteins. The worst case I can think of is the human equivalent of Mad Cow disease. It seems possible that proteins are merely a risk that we must take in order to obtain their constituents. Is this the current view? Jim Adrian

Many years ago, while in a trip of about a month, seems there was a power outage, and in the refrigerator, at my return, the simple kind of cheese changed from what it was to a very stinky, softer and much delicious type of cheese never tried before. The event was well explained to me by a highly knowledgeable professional of the cheese industry. I barely remember details now. To do it on purpose, what should be done to turn plain simple cheese into a 'fancy' or preferred or new type ? Would 'seeding' the plain cheese with a bit of gouda, brie, or whatever is choice; and what temperature or other considerations would work ? Is there also a chance to become poi…

Dear all, I am extracting RNA from flat worms (Gyrodactylus salaris) with Trizol-based method, but I do not get any RNA, or RNA amounts are very low (the control, fish tissue samples are extracted normally). Alive worms were frozen in liquid nitrogen in a drop of water (40 microliters). The number of worms per sample is around 30, and they are quite small (0.1 miliimeters). From this fresh-frozen samples I get nothing, whereas I was able to extract RNA from the same number of RNA-later stored worms previously. I tried the standard protocol; additionally homogenizing the frozen drop of water to powder with immediate adding of Trizol; letting the samples to sit longer in…

Hi all, I've been doing some research on production of recombinant insulin, I've been able to find anything on insulin production insect cells. Does anyone has an idea why insulin wasn't produced in baculovirus?? Appreciate your help