Using bioinformatics for better understanding of genes Becky Seipelt Karla Marriott Arlin Toro Vilma Martinez Roger Lui

DNA  RNA  PROTEIN  Function  phenotype Promoters Gene finding Variation Probability DOGMA Transcription Splicing Editing Modifications Human Gene Variation Translation Editing Modifications Structure Complexes TRANSLATE Structure Complexes 1. Gene finding2. Case study using a normal and a known mutant gene Ideas A FEW Resources Proposed activities

Becky Seipelt, Middle Tennessee State University Active learning activity – Perhaps animation comparison Give a small sequence file with 2-5 genes within. Ask students to figure out how the cell “knows” where a gene is, i.e., where to start and stop transcription, and where to start and stop translation. Introduce ‘gene finding’ algorithms for comparison (DOGMA)DOGMA Ask students to compare how “we” and nature differ? Honors Genetics (BIOL3250H) 2 blocks of 3 hours Sophomore-seniors, mostly sophomores Transcription and translation “learned” at least twice, perhaps more Goals: deeper understanding of processes and regulation more engaged students

Lab exercise-Mitochondrial DNA Analysis

Students will use DOGMA to identify genes that they amplify with PCR

Working with the Sequence Blast and other analysis evolutionary problems

How this project using DOGMA will help me teaching my genetics course The next time I teach the part of genomes and proteomes in my genetics course, in the explanation of comparative genomics, I can show similarities between different genomes and introduce them the evolutionary relationships between organisms of different species and the information that some species are more related than others.

Ideas for my course Computational and systems biology 7-week course. For comp. bio. part, either do sequence alignment problem if more math majors OR bioinformatics using data and software available on the web like what I have learned in this conference.

Forensic Biology Development of new course targeting seniors and juniors Involves lecture and laboratory Research- DNA sequencing, translation and transcription to protein Using software such as DOGMA, Translate, BLAST