Biochemistry and Molecular Biology

”In chemistry, the coordination number is the sum of the total number of neighbors of a central atom in a chemical compound and the number of lone pairs on it. In methane the coordination number for the carbon atom is 4.” - Wikipedia Encyclopedia* I don't know that much about chemistry to begin with but does anyone know if coordination number is important in organic chemistry for the bonding of complex molecules? "In methane the coordination number for the carbon atom is 4" I think this means that the carbon atom has a coordination number of four but from what I've read so far coordination numbers range from 1-16, four seems kind of low for carbon. Does the c…

Just a quick random question. Is there a certain chemical or group of chemicals that are responsible for making food hot(spicy) and why does it stimulate pain receptors in our mouth when as far as i can see it cannot cause any damage to your body?

Anyone? Also is MSG in any way related to the neurotrasmitter Gluamate?

Hi all, I use the plasmid "pBabe" for the first time. Does anyone know where the start codon for protein expression is located? Is it in the the beginning of "truncated Gag" or it is the "ATG" in the incerted cDNA sequence? Thank you very much.

I'm running a restriction endonuclease reaction, with HIND III and BAM HI. These enyzymes should be cutting my PGEM vector, so I can add my desired gene in later. However, I'm trying to test whether or not the cut was successful by running the cut vectors on a gel. The problem, I keep getting two bands when I should be getting one. My prof. thinks this might be because the RE is not cutting properly. I haven't run a control yet, but I'd figure I'd ask here if anybody has encountered something like this before. I'm not sure, if the RE is not cutting, where the two bands would come from. Anybody have any experiance with this and could spare a few ideas?

know it's a really basic question...but are crystallography and x-ray diffraction the same thing?

i heard the rate of mutation in some strains of HIV is decreasing. but since drug use increases the level of mutant strains of HIV why is this happening???

The disappearance of the nuclear membrane after the DNA condenses into chromsomes is an anomoly can be explained with hydrogen bonding. When the nuclear membrane goes from a large single structure into many smaller subunits, so it can disperse, the effect is due to surface tension with the nucleus of the cell. The increased surface tension within the nuclear membrane is directly related to the condensed chromosomes. Condensed chromosomes are the highest hydrogen bonding potential structures within the entire cell cycle. These increase the hydrogen bonding potential within the nucleus water and thereby increase the hydrogen bonding potential within the nuclear membran…

HI! can anyone pls tell me what are the effects of fluidity on enzyme activity pls help thanks in advance

Hi, Does anyone know which antibiotics should be used to select the bacterial containing pCL-10A1, or pHit60, or pCG-VSVG? And what are the sequencing primers for pBabe vectors? Thank you very much.

What do you think about the use of catalytic antibodies to design active sites for new enzymatic reactions. Then illucidating the structure and sequence of these sites and using the data as a template for the design of catalytic sites on proteins. These would obviously have pretty low rate enhancements initially (~10^4) or so. But they could probably be increased significantly through the use of guided evolution or even maybe some inginuitive fidling. It's an idea I've been fidling with. I know it's most likely being done now already, and i'll have a look around. But I'm curious on people oppinions on the idea.

hi! can anyone pls tell me what are the molecular techniques used for prenatal diagnosis of coronary heart disease. thanks in advance

Hi everyone! I've read on numerous occasions about all these trace minerals and elements required to keep you healthy but my questions is what are they all used for? there are things like Iron that are used to make the haem group in haemoglobyn - the part that carries the Oxygen in red blood cells. What about all those other ones? Does anyone have a list of the trace elements rerquired and what they are used for in the body? Note: This is out of interest and is not part of my school work Cheers, Ryan Jones

Hi i am a new member here and i'm sorry for this paticular amateurish question but its been confusing me in my biology class. My question is why uracil is used to replace thymine in messenger RNA manufacture, while during DNA replication thymine is used? They both are formed from free-floating nucleotides within the nucleus so this has just kind of confused me. Also if this is answered in another post (i have to admit i havn't look too hard) please can i have a link. Thank you in advance.

Anyone have a good western blot protocol? I was planning to run a real-time polymerase chain reaction but the capillaries in the PCR machine were contaminated. Now I cannot run the RT-PCR, which is the best quantitative method of PCR. So i have to resort to a western blot but i dont have a protocol. Can anyone give me the link to a good, reliable western blot protocol?

Hello, does anybody know whether the His6 epitope tag is immunogenic and sensitive enough to be used in immunofluorescence microscopy since it is so small? It has been shown to work on western blots, but I am not sure about immunofluoresce on cells, like COS7 cells. Thanks a lot. s70048

in citrate utilization test the enzymatic degradation of citrate yields two products, pyruvic acid and carbon dioxide. the pH goes up (alkaline) due to the fact that co2 is changed in to sodium carbonate (because sodium is present in water). but why the pH doesn't go down (acidic) or atleast stay same as pyruvic ACID is also produced??

can someone out there please donate a protocol for isolating human neutrophils from human blood. I did it about 8 years ago but cannot recall technique. involves dextran and ficoll but cannot obtain any detailed experimental protocol. stressed out.

Can the sugar *lactose* enter the mitochondria ?, is there a symport of lactose with protons to the mitochondria ?.

I had a test today in Biochemstry. In one of the questions the professor asked: Assuming you interfere with the van-der-waals intercations between phospholipids that create a biological plasma membrane, what will happen ?: 1) The fluidity of the membrane will go down. 2) The fluidity of the membrane will go up. 3) It will have no effect on the membrane fluidity. Is there a single *definitive* answer for this question ?.

Hi, I'm a new member and currently starting my first year in college since graduating HS last spring. I plan to get a BA in Molecular and Cell Biology, and then continue to UCSF as a graduate. My question for you all; I assume everyone knows about carcinoma telomerase production in all phases of the cell cycle. What small part of the cell cycle do 'normal' cells produce telomerase in? This is of course if normal cells indeed produce telomerase at all, but I heard rumors that they do (only in a tiny part right before the Go phase?). And I haven't surfed up any information on which gene is actually mutated to excessively produce telomerase (I doubt there is any...), bu…

Hi I want to use Chelex 100 resin to extact DNA but in catalogue i found two kinds of this reagent (with dry mesh size 100-200 and 200-400). Do you know practical differences between these reagents?

Hello. I'm a 15-year old programmer interested in creating an evolutionary simulation on the chemical level. Life is essentially self-replicating chemicals, which is what I want to simulate. How would mechanics of such system work? In other words, how does one get self-replication through chemical-reactions?

I came across an interesting comment/question posed in the "Humans In Science" blog, which I've reproduced below. I thought it might be interesting to see peoples' reactions. Influential scientists When my mom’s cousin’s husband saw me recently, he mentioned how he was positively in love with Lisa Randall, physicist extraordinaire, on the basis of a complimentary article that had appeared about her in the Guardian. What makes me smile is that this article styles her as “one of the most influential living scientists.” Well, that’s debatable, isn’t it? She seems like a fantastic person and brilliant and all that, but can I entice y’all out of the lurker’s woodwo…

Hey can anyone help me out over this. What is the consequence of DNA endonuclease replication? What if it does'nt happen(start) ? What if it is not controlled and continues forever ?? Also, if the replication doesn't stop n still it goes forever wat will be it's consequence and influence over the cell ? Please help me urgently and source the related texts too !! Thanks