Details of LS3202 (Spring 2015)

Level: 3 Type: Theory Credits: 3.0

Course CodeCourse NameInstructor(s)
LS3202 Gene Regulation and Cellular Communication Partho Sarothi Ray

Syllabus
1. Basic concepts in regulation of gene expression: requirement for regulation, advantages of regulation (robustness, fine-tunedness etc.), features of regulatory systems, natural selection of regulatory systems, spatial and temporal regulation, signal processing and information transduction, signal transduction pathways.

2. Physical chemistry of regulation: equilibria of biological reactions, effects on molecular affinity and concentrations.

3. Systems biology of gene regulation: Regulatory networks, network motifs, negative feedback as a conserved regulatory system, advantages of autoregulation: calculation of response time and robustness, feed forward loops.

4. Mechanisms of gene expression: DNA replication and repair, prokaryotic and eukaryotic transcription, post-transcriptional processes (splicing, mRNA export, localization, translation, decay), post-translational modifications as means of regulation of gene function.

5. Structure and function of gene regulatory proteins.

6. Concepts in cellular communication: response to stimuli as determinant of gene regulation, ligand-receptor interactions, calculation of dissociation constants and Scatchard analysis, nature and variety of signal transduction pathways.

7. Regulatory systems: Phage strategies.

8. Regulatory systems: Prokaryotic transcription regulation, operon concept, regulation of transcription termination, attenuation.

9. Regulatory systems: Eukaryotic transcription regulation, epigenetic regulation of transcription through reversible chromatin modification, transcription factors.

10. Regulatory systems: Post-transcriptional regulation in prokaryotes and eukaryotes, regulation mediated by cis-acting and trans-acting RNAs, riboswitches, regulation mediated by mRNA transport, splicing and localization, translation regulation: global and transcript specific, protein-mediated translation regulation, miRNA-mediated translation regulation.

11. Seminars covering examples of various regulatory systems.

References

Course Credit Options

Sl. No.ProgrammeSemester NoCourse Choice
1 IP 2 Core
2 IP 4 Elective
3 MR 2 Not Allowed
4 MR 4 Not Allowed
5 MS 6 Core
6 RS 1 Elective
7 RS 2 Elective