Once a bio major always a bio major
I was cleaning through our old collection of VHS tapes when I found the movie “Jurassic Park” that we once recorded from a TV rerun. I haven’t seen that movie in about five years so I popped it into our VHS player (yes we still have one of those ancients) and proceeded with the now 15 year old movie. As a little pastime, I was also looking up the wikipedia article about the concept of dinosaur cloning on my lap top. Under the heading “Biological Issues in Jurassic Park”, whoever wrote the article details how cloning a real life dinosaur is impossible because of 4 major reasons.
Maybe I’ve been away from my major for way too long but reason number three caught my attention. Here’s the whole paragraph:
The processes of CpG methylation and cytosine deaminization are especially important. The process of CpG methylation is a common regulatory device in eukaryotic DNA, where cytosine immediately preceding a guanine on the same stand is methylated. This acts as a molecular flag to control gene expression. The problem is, over time cytosine deaminization can occur-where a cytosine loses its amine group, which is replaced by a carbonyl group. un-methylated cytosine results in uracil, which is not found in DNA, so can it be assumed to be a de-aminated cytosine. On the other hand, if the cytosine has methylated, then the product of deaminization is thymine, which is found in DNA-so it would be impossible to know which Ts are Ts, and which are de-aminated methyl cytosines.
What made me stop and smile is not because I actually know what this paragraph is talking about. For the record, I only understood about 40% of that. But its the vocabulary that brought a smile to my face. “Methylation” “deamnization” “cytosine” and “gene expression” are what I read and dealt with on a daily basis throughout the 4 years of college.
Most of the time, I was trying my best to push through an incomprehensible scientific article. But today, those words seem like friendly little waves from the computer screen, reminding me that, once upon a time, and some time soon in the near future. I will be surrounded by biochemistry and its complex terminology again, most likely trying to decipher what the question is asking on a test.
6 more months of my year off to go. I am actually dreading the start of medical school. :)
Maybe I’ve been away from my major for way too long but reason number three caught my attention. Here’s the whole paragraph:
The processes of CpG methylation and cytosine deaminization are especially important. The process of CpG methylation is a common regulatory device in eukaryotic DNA, where cytosine immediately preceding a guanine on the same stand is methylated. This acts as a molecular flag to control gene expression. The problem is, over time cytosine deaminization can occur-where a cytosine loses its amine group, which is replaced by a carbonyl group. un-methylated cytosine results in uracil, which is not found in DNA, so can it be assumed to be a de-aminated cytosine. On the other hand, if the cytosine has methylated, then the product of deaminization is thymine, which is found in DNA-so it would be impossible to know which Ts are Ts, and which are de-aminated methyl cytosines.
What made me stop and smile is not because I actually know what this paragraph is talking about. For the record, I only understood about 40% of that. But its the vocabulary that brought a smile to my face. “Methylation” “deamnization” “cytosine” and “gene expression” are what I read and dealt with on a daily basis throughout the 4 years of college.
Most of the time, I was trying my best to push through an incomprehensible scientific article. But today, those words seem like friendly little waves from the computer screen, reminding me that, once upon a time, and some time soon in the near future. I will be surrounded by biochemistry and its complex terminology again, most likely trying to decipher what the question is asking on a test.
6 more months of my year off to go. I am actually dreading the start of medical school. :)