Exercise 10: What Is Your Gene?
Team members:
Strain: Genotype:
What is the relevant mutant gene in your strain?
The ability to access reliable information on the Internet is a critical technique for all scientists. In this exercise, you will use the Internet to uncover background information on the gene that is defective in your fission yeast strain. Respond to the questions below, indicating for each question, at least TWO reliable web sites or journal articles that helped you answer the questions.
DO NOT USE “WIKIPEDIA” AS A REFERENCE/CITATION SOURCE FOR THIS EXERCISE.
1. What is the normal function of the wild type allele (version) of the gene that is mutant in your strain??
Web site/Journal article #1
Web site/Journal article #2
2. What is this gene called in at least two other organisms (human, mouse, plants, frogs, budding yeast, bacteria)?
Web site/Journal article #1
Web site/Journal article #2
3. Is there any human disease that is associated with defects in this gene?
Web site/Journal article #1
Web site/Journal article #2
On the computer, please type your responses to these questions on the Word document. At the end of the day, please print out this page with your responses (1 or 2 pages – not longer), and turn it in to the instructor.
Some suggestions about searching for information:
Use Entrez/Pub-Med (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=PubMed ) to search for recent articles or reviews on the topic covered by the research article you selected.
PubMed tutorial (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/pubmed_tutorial/m1001.html )
Consult the Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man (OMIM) for additional information about human genetic diseases:
(http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=OMIM)
The SFSU library has subscriptions to many biological sciences journals that will contain appropriate primary research articles. You can search online to see if the library has the journal you require (http://opac.sfsu.edu/search~S5). The subscription may be a paper subscription so you will need to go to the library to view it. The subscription may be an online subscription that you will be able to access from any SFSU computer. This web site allows you to check for SFSU online subscriptions:
http://sfx.calstate.edu:9003/sfsu/a-z/sfsu
Cell and Molecular and Microbiology Online journals available by SFSU subscription (along with some important journals that are not available online)
http://online.sfsu.edu/~pasion/SFSUOnlineCMMJournals.html
6/16/09 Bridges Directed Research Program – sgp Page 1 of 1
Exercise10.doc