bio125, central dogma review

video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgu0l-4i4DQ&list=TL7yY_72WFngZcsca_qsd_4QsXP3pZcQYQ

I spent two hours on central dogma.

Using the arginine pathway to explain how mutations and selection on plates can be used to infer genetic pathways.

Use the central dogma on white board as the main theme. Ask students to form 3 groups to work on replication, transcription, and translation.  I asked student to find out "start", "players", "stop" signals in the three processes.

For Shine-Delgarno signal, I gave a hint to students, "It shines".

Animations on transcription, and translation were used.

At the end of the class, students were asked to paraphrase my concept map on the board and submit it in hand writings.

Reviewed midterm grades and gave back sheets back to students.

Things that I can improve:
 1)  It is not clear how anticodons are defined on the tRNA in both Brooker, Madigan and other online tools. I told the students that 5' and 3' will be told to them if anticodon were put into quizzes or exams.
 2)  Transcription difference between bacteria and eukarya include promoter, protein factors, intron and exon, maturation of mRNA.
3)  Translation difference between bacteria and eukarya include ribosomes, initiation signals.
4) Replication differences between bacteria and eukarya can emphasize telomerase

I did not have time to go over 'error correction' mechanism or 'quality control' steps.
DNA polymerase has proofreading 3'-5' exonuclease. DNA repair mechanism is also there to repair mistakes or damages to DNA.

For transcription in eukarya, RNA polymerase (polymerase II) also backtracks. 

For translation, ribosomal proofreading is found in E coli.  Folding chaperones work in the post-translation steps.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC557732/

Note: Although students are supposed to know central dogma in bio120, some complained that I did not explain what 30S and 50S stand for?