In order to better understand the underlying biological concepts of this lecture, read the E-learning material for Biological basics and RNA secondary structure. Please review the material beforehand. We will solve the exercise question together within the exercise session.

Exercise 1 - Biological Basics

Create an individual mind map for the learning unit on biological basics. (A mind map is a graph with nodes for terms and edges that describe a logical relationship between terms, e.g. an organism consists of cell(s) so you could draw a line between the terms organism and cell, the line could then be annotated with ‘contains’ to denote the logical relationship).

Try to identify important keywords and connect them with edges describing their logical relation- ship. The mind map should consist of at least 10 nodes. There will be many different possible and equally valid solutions.

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Hint

You can use the following notes to create your mind map:

  • secondary structure
  • nucleotides
  • DNA
  • RNA
  • virus
  • protein
  • amino acids
  • primary structure
Solution

There are many possible solutions. Here is one example:

Exercise 2 - RNA secondary structure

Given the following (unordered) initial set of keywords, arrange them in a mind map with respective relations. Extend with all keywords and relations you find missing and important, given the learning unit on RNA secondary structure.

  • multi loop
  • Feynman diagram
  • nucleotide
  • primary structure
  • crossing
  • stacking
  • Guanine
  • Watson-Crick base pair
  • helix

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Hint

The following keywords can be helpful in building the mind map:

  • DNA
  • RNA
  • secondary structure
  • hairpin
Solution

There are many possible solutions. Here is one example:

Exercise 3

How much of the DNA is transcribed and then translated into protein and how much of the DNA is transcribed into RNA in humans?

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Hint

The percentages of DNA resulting in proteins can vary across organisms. Not always, but often, ‘higher’ organisms have a smaller percentage of their DNA transcribed and translated into proteins. Eukaryotes like humans can use alternative splicing to produce multiple proteins out of one gene. It is estimated that 70% of genes in humans are expressed as multiple proteins through alternative splicing.

Solution
  • 1% DNA -to- protein
  • 80 - 90% DNA -to- RNA

In humans, it’s estimated that over 80% of DNA is transcribed, but only less than 2% transcribes into mRNA, which will be translated into protein. However, only about 1% of DNA is made up of protein-coding genes; the other 99% is noncoding. This noncoding DNA can have various functions, including regulation of gene expression.