Co-Lab Open Science School

• Refer to The Universal Features of Cells on Earth
• prokaryotes vs eukaryotes
• prokaryote: a prokaryote is a single-celled organism that lacks a membrane-bound nucleus (karyon), mitochondria, or any other membrane-bound organelle.
• eukaryote: a eukaryote is any organism whose cells contain a nucleus and other organelles enclosed within membranes.

• You are composed of many cells. You begin with one single egg cell.
• All cells stores their hereditary info in the same linear chemical code (DNA)
• All cells transcribe portions of their hereditary information into the same intermediary form (RNA)
• Ribonucleic acid (RNA) is a polymeric molecule implicated in various biological roles in coding, decoding, regulation, and expression of genes. RNA and DNA are nucleic acids, and, along with proteins and carbohydrates, constitute the three major macromolecules essential for all known forms of life.

• http://genius.com/Igem-paris-bettencourt-team-how-to-build-an-igem-team-annotated
• http://genius.com/artists/Igem-paris-bettencourt-team
• http://genius.com/Igem-paris-bettencourt-team-what-is-the-central-dogma-of-biology-annotated

• All cells use proteins as catalysts
• All cells translate RNA into protein in the same way

The translation of genetic information from the 4-letter alphabet of polynucleotides into the 20-letter alphabet of proteins is a complex process. The rules of this translation seem in some respects neat and rational, in other respects strangely arbitrary, given that they are (with minor exceptions) identical in all living things. These arbitrary features, it is thought, reflect frozen accidents in the early history of life chance properties of the earliest organisms that were passed on by heredity and have become so deeply embedded in the constitution of all living cells that they cannot be changed without wrecking cell organization.

• "Its just a bit of a GTCA": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQEaX3MiDow

• Exercise: make a list of letters - GCTA.

• What is a gene? The fragment of generic information corresponding to one protein is one gene. A gene is a distinct sequence of nucleotides forming part of a chromosome, the order of which determines the order of monomers in a polypeptide or nucleic acid molecule which a cell (or virus) may synthesize.

• RNA also have a large role in the functioning of the cell. RNA interference (RNAi) is a biological process in which RNA molecules inhibit gene expression, typically by causing the destruction of specific mRNA molecules. Viruses like HIV has a double strand. Almost all double strands (rare) are bad or virus or alien things that will kill cells. They cut everything and destroy similar things to itself. It is a tool used to kill RNA molecules that is similar to it. You can make it to do experiments.

• All cells function as biochemical factories dealing with the same basic molecular building blocks
• living organisms reproduce themselves by transmitting genetic information to their children.