The Adventures of T-Money

Today we took a tour of the lab and were shown most of the equipment that we would be using over the summer. We then started to read information about the projects that we would be working on. My readings focused on DNA and how the coils of DNA are wrapped around a hockey puck which is made up of two of each of the histones H2A H2B H3 H4. The histones are identical in size and fit together to form a hockey puck shape which the DNA is wrapped around twice before continuing on to another puck. This allows the long strand of DNA to be tightly compacted. At the top where the DNA comes off the puck is an H1 histone which serves as some sort of paperclip but I don'tknow the specifics of it yet. Now this configuration of DNA and histones is called the nucleosome. This is what transcription which is where some kinda genetic scanner scans a part of the DNA and then prints out a 3 piece copy of RNA which travels to proteins and fits into specific ones to activate them. I read about Transcription control which is controlling what part of the DNA gets scanned but did not read much farther into it. I also read a little about Histone Acetylation which is adding a specific acetyl group to the amino acids of the histone proteins causing the histone to loosen its grip on the DNA. We then went into the lab and practiced with the Micro Pipette creating 5 solutions of Co P Mg and de-ionized water and then testing our accuracy with the Spectrometer. The results showed that i either added a bit too much of each solution or added too much water but john later admit that he sabotaged my solutions.