1. Describe three distinctly different examples of gene amplification.
2. What is meant by the term alternative splicing and what is its biological and genetic significance?
3. What is the importance of controlling the relative stabilities of mRNA molecules coding for different proteins?
4. Distinguish between end product repression and feedback inhibition in a manner that makes it clear you know what each is and how they differ.
5. Describe three distinctly different ways in which the rate of synthesis of the amino acid tryptophan is regulated in bacteria such as E. coli.
6. Identify as many different points as you can between genomic DNA and the final functional gene product at which gene expression can potentially be regulated.
7. Under what conditions is it advantageous for proteins and their mRNAs to have very short half lives?
8. Compare the relative advantages and disadvantages of a control system that acts early in the pathway of information flow (such as transcriptional control) and a control system that acts late in the pathway of informaiton flow (such as feedback inhibition). You have not been given an answer. This calls for speculation, taking into account such factors as relative expenditures of energy, speed of response, and overall effectiveness of the control mechanisms.
9. Describe as many distinctly different situations as you can in which an allosteric change in a protein alters its biological activity.
10. Describe an experiment in which the presence of an excess of one amino acid caused cultured cells to require supplementation with a different amino acid in order to be able to grow. What was the explanation for this phenomenon? How was this phenomenon used to select for mutant strains that would produce larger amounts of the first amino acid? (see example 8.5 if you need help with this one).
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