a molecular bio question

[atb009]

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So i have been trying to increase my biology score by trying a number of different practice materials...Now i know this isnt an actual mcat question but i came across something similar in one of the practice materials and have seen a passage based on this before so any help would be appreciated!

How would you isolate and to begin to characterize a novel gene from a newly discovered mammalian species for which no previous genetic work has been done (i.e., there is no genomic sequence, nor genomic or cDNA libraries available). You have been emailed a 500 base sequence that was derived from an EST (expressed sequence tag) clone that appears to be associated with a novel disease process. The only molecular data you have is this short sequence (~500 bases). The goal is to isolate and characterize the gene that gave rise to this EST.

Can anyone help with how such a method would be approached...thanks

 

[Boges]

So i have been trying to increase my biology score by trying a number of different practice materials...Now i know this isnt an actual mcat question but i came across something similar in one of the practice materials and have seen a passage based on this before so any help would be appreciated!

How would you isolate and to begin to characterize a novel gene from a newly discovered mammalian species for which no previous genetic work has been done (i.e., there is no genomic sequence, nor genomic or cDNA libraries available). You have been emailed a 500 base sequence that was derived from an EST (expressed sequence tag) clone that appears to be associated with a novel disease process. The only molecular data you have is this short sequence (~500 bases). The goal is to isolate and characterize the gene that gave rise to this EST.

Can anyone help with how such a method would be approached...thanks

go FISHing.

 

[IndianVercetti]

Fluorescence In Situ Hybridization, then use PCR to amplify the gene to characterize it. I guess you could also use electrophoresis and isolate it that way also, since you know the sequence size.

This is interesting stuff, but I'd think you'd only need to know the basics as to when to use these processes for the MCAT. For instance, that PCR is for amplification of a gene segment, FISH is for using a probe to identify a gene sequence.

 

[JonSwan]

In an actual lab, however, the first course of action would be to conduct a BLAST search against related species that do have annotated genomic information. This could be thought of as computerized FISH but it is free, takes little time and would likely give you an excellent idea of what this gene is. Don't think MCAT tests on BLAST though...