|
Umu Chromotest
For pharmacology and genetics, the Umu Chromotest, first developed and published by Oda et al., is a biological assay (bioassay) to assess the genotoxic potential of chemical compounds. It is based on the ability of DNA-damaging agents to induce the expression of the umu operon. In connection with the damage inducible (din) genes recA, lexA and umuD, the umuC gene is essentially involved in bacterial mutagenesis through the SOS response. This test uses an operon fusion placing the lac operon (responsible for producing β-galactosidase, a protein which degrades lactose) under the control of the umu-related proteins. A simple colorimetric test is possible by adding a lactose analog which is degraded by β-galactosidase, producing a colored compound which can be measured quantitatively through spectrophotometry. The degree of color development is an indirect measure of the β-galactosidase produced, which itself is directly related to the amount of DNA damage. The Umu Chromotest has ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pharmacology
Pharmacology is a branch of medicine, biology and pharmaceutical sciences concerned with drug or medication action, where a drug may be defined as any artificial, natural, or endogenous (from within the body) molecule which exerts a biochemical or physiological effect on the cell, tissue, organ, or organism (sometimes the word ''pharmacon'' is used as a term to encompass these endogenous and exogenous bioactive species). More specifically, it is the study of the interactions that occur between a living organism and chemicals that affect normal or abnormal biochemical function. If substances have medicinal properties, they are considered pharmaceuticals. The field encompasses drug composition and properties,functions,sources,synthesis and drug design, molecular and cellular mechanisms, organ/systems mechanisms, signal transduction/cellular communication, molecular diagnostics, interactions, chemical biology, therapy, and medical applications and antipathogenic capabilities. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Genetics
Genetics is the study of genes, genetic variation, and heredity in organisms.Hartl D, Jones E (2005) It is an important branch in biology because heredity is vital to organisms' evolution. Gregor Mendel, a Moravian Augustinian friar working in the 19th century in Brno, was the first to study genetics scientifically. Mendel studied "trait inheritance", patterns in the way traits are handed down from parents to offspring over time. He observed that organisms (pea plants) inherit traits by way of discrete "units of inheritance". This term, still used today, is a somewhat ambiguous definition of what is referred to as a gene. Trait inheritance and molecular inheritance mechanisms of genes are still primary principles of genetics in the 21st century, but modern genetics has expanded to study the function and behavior of genes. Gene structure and function, variation, and distribution are studied within the context of the cell, the organism (e.g. dominance), and within the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bioassay
A bioassay is an analytical method to determine the concentration or potency of a substance by its effect on living animals or plants (''in vivo''), or on living cells or tissues(''in vitro''). A bioassay can be either quantal or quantitative, direct or indirect. If the measured response is binary, the assay is quantal, if not, it is quantitative. A bioassay may be used to detect biological hazards or to give an assessment of the quality of a mixture. A bioassay is often used to monitor water quality as well as wastewater discharges and its impact on the surroundings. It is also used to assess the environmental impact and safety of new technologies and facilities. Principle A bioassay is a biochemical test to estimate the potency of a sample compound. Usually this potency can only be measured relative to a standard compound. A typical bioassay involves a ''stimulus'' (ex. drugs) applied to a ''subject'' (ex. animals, tissues, plants). The corresponding ''response'' (ex. death) ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Genotoxic
Genotoxicity is the property of chemical agents that damage the genetic information within a cell causing mutations, which may lead to cancer. While genotoxicity is often confused with Mutagen, mutagenicity, all mutagens are genotoxic, but some genotoxic substances are not mutagenic. The alteration can have direct or indirect effects on the DNA: the induction of mutations, mistimed event activation, and direct DNA damage leading to mutations. The permanent, heritable changes can affect either somatic cells of the organism or germ cells to be passed on to future generations. Cells prevent expression of the genotoxic mutation by either DNA repair or apoptosis; however, the damage may not always be fixed leading to mutagenesis. To bioassay, assay for genotoxic molecules, researchers assay for DNA damage in cells exposed to the toxic substrates. This DNA damage can be in the form of single- and double-strand breaks, loss of excision repair, cross-linking, alkali-labile sites, point mutat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chemical Compounds
A chemical compound is a chemical substance composed of many identical molecules (or molecular entities) containing atoms from more than one chemical element held together by chemical bonds. A molecule consisting of atoms of only one element is therefore not a compound. A compound can be transformed into a different substance by a chemical reaction, which may involve interactions with other substances. In this process, bonds between atoms may be broken and/or new bonds formed. There are four major types of compounds, distinguished by how the constituent atoms are bonded together. Molecular compounds are held together by covalent bonds; ionic compounds are held together by ionic bonds; intermetallic compounds are held together by metallic bonds; coordination complexes are held together by coordinate covalent bonds. Non-stoichiometric compounds form a disputed marginal case. A chemical formula specifies the number of atoms of each element in a compound molecule, using the sta ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Operon
In genetics, an operon is a functioning unit of DNA containing a cluster of genes under the control of a single promoter. The genes are transcribed together into an mRNA strand and either translated together in the cytoplasm, or undergo splicing to create monocistronic mRNAs that are translated separately, i.e. several strands of mRNA that each encode a single gene product. The result of this is that the genes contained in the operon are either expressed together or not at all. Several genes must be ''co-transcribed'' to define an operon. Originally, operons were thought to exist solely in prokaryotes (which includes organelles like plastids that are derived from bacteria), but since the discovery of the first operons in eukaryotes in the early 1990s, more evidence has arisen to suggest they are more common than previously assumed. In general, expression of prokaryotic operons leads to the generation of polycistronic mRNAs, while eukaryotic operons lead to monocistronic mRNA ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
SOS Response
The SOS response is a global response to DNA damage in which the cell cycle is arrested and DNA repair and mutagenesis is induced. The system involves the RecA protein ( Rad51 in eukaryotes). The RecA protein, stimulated by single-stranded DNA, is involved in the inactivation of the repressor (LexA) of SOS response genes thereby inducing the response. It is an error-prone repair system that contributes significantly to DNA changes observed in a wide range of species. Discovery The SOS response was discovered and named by Miroslav Radman in 1975. Mechanism During normal growth, the SOS genes are negatively regulated by LexA repressor protein dimers. Under normal conditions, LexA binds to a 20-bp consensus sequence (the SOS box) in the operator region for those genes. Some of these SOS genes are expressed at certain levels even in the repressed state, according to the affinity of LexA for their SOS box. Activation of the SOS genes occurs after DNA damage by the accumulation of s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lac Operon
The ''lactose'' operon (''lac'' operon) is an operon required for the transport and metabolism of lactose in ''E. coli'' and many other enteric bacteria. Although glucose is the preferred carbon source for most bacteria, the ''lac'' operon allows for the effective digestion of lactose when glucose is not available through the activity of beta-galactosidase. Gene regulation of the ''lac'' operon was the first genetic regulatory mechanism to be understood clearly, so it has become a foremost example of prokaryotic gene regulation. It is often discussed in introductory molecular and cellular biology classes for this reason. This lactose metabolism system was used by François Jacob and Jacques Monod to determine how a biological cell knows which enzyme to synthesize. Their work on the ''lac'' operon won them the Nobel Prize in Physiology in 1965. Bacterial operons are polycistronic transcripts that are able to produce multiple proteins from one mRNA transcript. In this case, when l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spectrophotometry
Spectrophotometry is a branch of electromagnetic spectroscopy concerned with the quantitative measurement of the reflection or transmission properties of a material as a function of wavelength. Spectrophotometry uses photometers, known as spectrophotometers, that can measure the intensity of a light beam at different wavelengths. Although spectrophotometry is most commonly applied to ultraviolet, visible, and infrared radiation, modern spectrophotometers can interrogate wide swaths of the electromagnetic spectrum, including x-ray, ultraviolet, visible, infrared, and/or microwave wavelengths. Overview Spectrophotometry is a tool that hinges on the quantitative analysis of molecules depending on how much light is absorbed by colored compounds. Important features of spectrophotometers are spectral bandwidth (the range of colors it can transmit through the test sample), the percentage of sample-transmission, the logarithmic range of sample-absorption, and sometimes a percentage of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mutagen
In genetics, a mutagen is a physical or chemical agent that permanently changes nucleic acid, genetic material, usually DNA, in an organism and thus increases the frequency of mutations above the natural background level. As many mutations can cause cancer in animals, such mutagens can therefore be carcinogens, although not all necessarily are. All mutagens have characteristic mutational signatures with some chemicals becoming mutagenic through cellular processes. The process of DNA becoming modified is called mutagenesis. Not all mutations are caused by mutagens: so-called "spontaneous mutations" occur due to spontaneous hydrolysis, DNA error, errors in DNA replication, repair and Genetic recombination, recombination. Discovery The first mutagens to be identified were carcinogens, substances that were shown to be linked to cancer. Tumors were described more than 2,000 years before the discovery of chromosomes and DNA; in 500 B.C., the Greece, Greek physician Hippocrates named tu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Salmonella Typhimurium
''Salmonella enterica'' subsp. ''enterica'' is a subspecies of ''Salmonella enterica'', the rod-shaped, flagellated, aerobic, Gram-negative bacterium. Many of the pathogenic serovars of the ''S. enterica'' species are in this subspecies, including that responsible for typhoid. Serovars ''S. enterica'' subsp. ''enterica'' contains a large number of serovars which can infect a broad range of vertebrate hosts. The individual members range from being highly host-adapted (only able to infect a narrow range of species) to displaying a broad host range. A number of techniques are currently used to differentiate between serotypes. These include looking for the presence or absence of antigens, phage typing, molecular fingerprinting and biotyping, where serovars are differentiated by which nutrients they are able to ferment. A possible factor in determining the host range of particular serovars is phage-mediated acquisition of a small number of genetic elements that enable infection of a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
OD600
OD600 (Also written as ''O.D. 600'', D600, ''o.d. 600'', ''OD600'') is an abbreviation indicating the optical density of a sample measured at a wavelength of 600 nm in 1 cm light path (unless otherwise stated). It is a commonly used in microbiology for estimating the concentration of bacteria or other cells in a liquid as the 600 nm wavelength does little to damage or hinder their growth. OD600 is a type of turbidity measurement. Since optical density in case of OD600 measurements results from light scattering by particles (cells) rather than absorption, size and shape as well as dead cells and debris of a cell may add to light dissipating. Distinctive cell types that are at densities of the same level (eg. cell/mL), may, therefore, show varying values OD600, when estimated on a similar instrument. For turbid samples such as cell cultures, the major contributor for the optical density measured is light scattering and not the result of molecular absorption following t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
