Chapter 4
Genetics and Cellular Function

 

  1. Know all of the key terms of chapter 4.
  2. Know about Watson, Crick and Wilkins’ work that earned them the Nobel Prize in 1962.
  3. Know what chromatin is and know its relationship with chromosomes and DNA.
  4. Know what nucleosomes and histones are.
  5. Know what a nucleotide is and know what it consists of.
  6. Know the structure of DNA.
  7. Know the names of the nitrogenous bases and know which ones are purines and which are pyrimidines.
  8. Know the structural difference between purines and pyrimidines.
  9. Know which bases are found in RNA and which are found in DNA.
  10. Understand the law of complementary base pairing and know what type of bond occurs between the bases in the two strands of DNA. 
  11. If given the sequence of nucleotides in one DNA strand, be able to predict the sequence of the second strand.
  12. Understand the function of DNA.
  13. Understand what a gene is and know what the genome is.
  14. Understand the structure and function of RNA.
  15. Know the structural differences between RNA and DNA.
  16. Understand the functional differences between RNA and DNA.
  17. Know the types of RNA and understand the differences in their functions.
  18. Understand what ‘protein synthesis’ means and understand how this process starts with DNA and involves RNA, ribosomes, endoplasmic reticulum and golgi complex.
  19. Understand how DNA can be the blueprint for each individual when all it does is determine which proteins to synthesize.
  20. Understand how all of the cells of our body can have the same DNA but different cells don’t synthesis the same proteins.
  21. Understand the sequence of events in transcription and translation.
  22. Understand the genetic code.  Understand how the 4 nucleotides in DNA can code for 20 amino acids.
  23. Understand what a base triplet is.  Understand what the codon and anticodon are.
  24. Know what the stop codons and start codons are.
  25. Know what introns and exons are.
  26. Understand what ‘posttranslational modification’ is process and know where it occurs.
  27. Understand the process of DNA replication and know when and why it occurs.
  28. Understand the role of the enzymes DNA polymerase and DNA helicase.
  29. Understand why DNA replication is said to be ‘semiconservative’.
  30. Understand what mutations are and know their effects.  Understand how some replication errors are corrected.
  31. Understand the cell cycle and know what events occur at each stage.  Know the stages in order.
  32. Understand what ‘mitosis’ means and know the names of each phase in order.
  33. Know the events that occur during each phase of mitosis and understand the purpose of mitosis.  Why does it occur in the first place?
  34. Be able to recognize cells in each stage if shown photographs or drawings.
  35. Know what cytokinesis is and know when it occurs.  Understand the process.
  36. Know the requirements of cell division.  What must occur before a cell can divide?
  37. Know what factors prevent cell division.
  38. Know what homologous chromosomes are. 
  39. Know what ‘somatic cells’ and ‘sex cells’ are.
  40. Understand what ‘diploid’ and ‘haploid’ mean.  When you say diploid means ‘two of each type of chromosome’ what do you mean by “each type”?
  41. Know how many chromosomes humans have.  Know how many are autosomes and how many are sex chromosomes.
  42. Know how a female’s karyotype would look different from a male’s.
  43. Understand the importance of sex cells having the haploid number of chromosomes and not the diploid number.
  44. Understand what alleles are.  Know what a gene locus is.
  45. Understand the difference between dominant and recessive alleles.
  46. Understand the meaning of ‘genotype’ and ‘phenotype’ and ‘heterozygous’ and homozygous’.
  47. Understand the following: ‘multiple alleles’, ‘codominance’, ‘incomplete dominance’ ‘pleiotropy’ and ‘polygenic inheritance’.
  48. Understand why in sex-linked inheritance a trait can be passed from a mother to her son more easily than to her daughters.  Why is hemophilia more common in men?
  49. If a trait is dominant does that mean most people in the population will have the dominant trait?
  50. Understand how blood type is determined and how paternity blood tests can be used to determine if a male is not a child’s biological father.
  51. Know the two types of tumors.  Understand the properties of tumors.
  52. Know some of the causes of cancer and understand the properties (characteristics) of cancers.
  53. Know what ‘carcinogens’ and ‘mutagens’ are.
  54. Understand what ‘oncogenes’ and ‘tumor suppressor genes’ are.
  55. Understand why cancer is fatal.