DNA Sequencing Activity

It is the week back from Spring Break and boy it sure is going slow. This week in Biology we had to separate each base from DNA into a series of threes. This was so we could see the proteins. This was kind of hard to do hahah. We made a lot of mistakes!
The point of this was to see how Abby, Bob, and Carol are alike to Norm. (the normal DNA)

Here is the graph we put together yesterday:

     -Abby had almost the same DNA as Norm. There was only one base difference which made a 97% similarity to Norm. Norm had the protein GAG and Abby had GTG. This is know as point mutation. The protein changed from Glu to Val. This makes the molecules hydrophobic.
     -Bob also had only one difference from Norm and a 97% similarity. Norm had the protein AAG and Bob had TAG. The protein changed from Lys to the signal that the proteins stops. This makes the protein become to short otherwise known as truncation mutation. This can cause problems in the future.

     -Carol has the most difference from Norm. There were 19 differences between the bases which made a 59% similarity to Norm. There isn't really that much difference between their bases. Carol missed a base which set her off from Norm. This is called frameshift mutation. This can cause problems in Carol's future.



This was really interesting. It is amazing how simple DNA and diseases really are. I thought a lot more things had to go wrong for people to get a disease. This was a fun activity.