Molecular Biology - channel 1

Theoretical skills of the main biological processes at the basis of the maintenance of the genetic information e its expression in microorganisms and animals.
Theoretical knowledge of the bio-molecular basic methods supporting the experimental approaches.

Frontal lectures and exercises

Bases, nucleosides, nucleotides. Primary and secondary structure of the nucleic acids. Three-dimensional structure of double helix: B-DNA, A-DNA and Z- DNA. Alternative structure of the DNA double helix: H-DNA, Cruciform structure. RNA structures. Supercoiled DNA structures. Superhelix parameters. Topoisomerases.

DNA denaturation process. Melting temperature and %CG content. Genome complexity. DNA kinetic reannealing e Cot study. Ripetitive and unique sequences. Transposons.
Genome sizes. Genome organization in viruses and prokaryotes. Genome organization in eukaryotes: cromatin, nucleosomes, histones, chromosomes. Chemical modifications of histones (histone code) ed regulation of gene expression. Genes and histone variants.

DNA replication. Initiation, elongation and termination stages. Examples of replication mechanisms in viruses, prokaryotes and eukaryotes. Proteins involved in prokaryotes and eukaryotes. DNA replication. Telomerase.

Types and amounts of transcripts. Transcription in prokaryotes and eukaryotes. Transcription in prokaryotes: RNA polymerases. Transcription unit. Processing of pre-rRNA and pre-tRNA. Transcriptional regulation in prokarytes (operons and attenuators).
Transcription in eukaryotes: RNA polymerase I, II, III. Promoters. Processing of pre- mRNA,pre- rRNA and pre-tRNA. Editing. Introns. mechanisms of pre-mRNA, pre-tRNA e pre-rRNA cis-splicing. Altervative splicing. Trans-splicing. Regulation of gene expression: chromatin structure and DNA methylation. Transcriptional regulation and transcriptional factors. Enhancer e silencer. Insulator. Post-transcriptional regulation.

Genetic code. Protein synthesis in prokaryotes and eukaryotes. Aminoacid activation and aminoacil-tRNA synthesases. Ribosomes. Initiation, elongation and termination stages and involved factors. Gene expression regulation at level of translation.

DNA viruses and replicase. Retroviruses and inverse transcriptase. Oncogenes.

Gene families (globins) and mechanisms of gene expression regulation.

Molecular Biology and recombinant DNA technology. DNA sequencing. Restriction endonucleases and restriction maps. Southern e Northern blotting. DNA cloning technology and cloning vectors. PCR.

1) Watson et al., Biologia molecolare del gene, 7 ed, Zanichelli; 2) Zlataanova & van Holde, Biologia molecolare, ed. Zanichelli