Seminar topics on Molecular Biology for year II students

1. Nucleic acid structure, physical and chemical properties and packing in cell structures.

1. Nucleic acid structure.
2. Specific pairing of  nitrogenous bases and secondary structure of DNA and RNA.
3. Nucleic acid denaturation and renaturation. Nucleic acid hybridization.
4. Size and shape of DNA and RNA molecules.
5. DNA packing in bacterial cells.
6. DNA packing in eukaryotic cells: chromatin and chromosomes. Different levels of DNA packing.

2. Gene expression

1. Central dogma of molecular biology. An overview of gene expression in bacterial and eukaryotic cells.
2. Transcription –the first stage of gene expression .
3. Primary transcript processing in eukaryotic cells.
4. An overview of messenger RNA (mRNA) translation on ribosomes (genetic code characteristics, an open reading frame of a gene and consequences of point mutations, a role of tRNA and aminoacylosynthesases).
5. Posttranslational processing of polypeptides.
6. Regulation of gene expression: transcriptional-level control.
7. Regulation of gene expression: other than transcriptional-level control mechanisms
8. Epigenetic mechanisms of gene activity regulation.

3. DNA replication and repair

1. Semiconservative mode of DNA replication. Molecular mechanism of DNA replication. Modified nucleotides as antiviral and antitumor drugs.
2. Replication of the ends of linear DNA molecules. Telomers and telomerase. Telomerase activation in tumor  cells.
3. Sources and consequences of replication errors: spontaneous and DNA damage-induced replication errors. Mutations. DNA damage agents as antitumor drugs.
4. Ensuring of high fidelity of replication: correction of spontaneous replication errors (proof-reading activity of DNA polymerases, mismatch repair system).
5. DNA damage repair: direct, by excision (BER and NER), double-stranded breakage (DSBs) (HR and NHEJ). DNA damage repair deficiencies.
6. Replication control during cell cycle: initiation of replication, restricting replication to once per cell cycle, DNA damage response.

4. Human genome characteristics

1. General features of human genome (nucleous and mitochondrial genomes). Human Genome Project and other genome and transcriptome projects. Gene databases.
2. General characteristics of protein-coding and RNA-coding genes (number of known genes, size, exon-intron organization, gene families, pseudogenes and gene fragments).
3. Non-coding DNA (regulatory sequences, unique and repeated DNA sequences)
4. Variability of human genome – extent and types of sequence variations (single nucleotide polymorphism, SNA; length polymorphism, STRs and VNTRs; copy number variations, CNVs).
5. Main sources of genome variability – DNA mutations due to replication and DNA damage repair errors. Pathological and nonpathological sequence variants (alleles).
6. Genetic recombination. Homologous and non-homologous recombination. Mobile genetic elements (transposons)  and transposition. Assymetrical cross-over.

5. Molecular biology techniques used in molecular diagnostics.

1. Nucleic acid isolation and electrophoresis.
2. Restriction endonucleases and their use in laboratory practice.
3. DNA cloning in cloning vectors and transformed vector introduction into a cell. Recombinated proteins.
4. PCR reaction.
5. Nucleic acid hybridization.
6. Methods of analyzing DNA sequence: screening methods, detection of known mutations (variants), DNA sequencing.
7. Modern methods of genome, transcriptome and proteome analyzing.