Week 2 HW: DNA Read, Write & Edit

Homework Questions from Professor Jacobson:

  1. Nature’s machinery for copying DNA is called polymerase. What is the error rate of polymerase? How does this compare to the length of the human genome. How does biology deal with that discrepancy?

Longest Human Proteins (PKS): >100kbp Chemical Synthesis: (Open Loop Protection Group) Error rate: 1:102 Throughput: 300 S per Base Addition. This can be corrected with Biological Synthesis (Error Correcting Polymerase)

  1. How many different ways are there to code (DNA nucleotide code) for an average human protein? In practice what are some of the reasons that all of these different codes don’t work to code for the protein of interest?

3..? (Sorry I will pay attention to week 2 lecture, need to look into this at a slower pace)

Homework Questions from Dr. LeProust:

  1. What’s the most commonly used method for oligo synthesis currently?

Clonal gene..?

  1. Why is it difficult to make oligos longer than 200nt via direct synthesis?

Complexities that makes it difficult include: Extreme changes in GC content, Regions of high average GC content and High average GC content

  1. Why can’t you make a 2000bp gene via direct oligo synthesis?

Long terminal repeats and long internal repeats and tandem repeats

Homework Question from George Church:

  1. What are the 10 essential amino acids in all animals and how does this affect your view of the “Lysine Contingency”?

10 Amino acids: Threonine, Serine, Aspartate, Histidine, Cysteine, Methionine, Asparagine, Lysine, Arginine, and Tyrosine.

I googled this and it talked about the Lysine Contigency in Jurassic Park.. Am I doing this right?

P.S.: the last time I studied any biology was more than 10 years ago so please forgive my rusty left brain cells.