by Alan H. Katz


AL


Automated Molecular Biology


Lower costs and increased speeds have led researchers sequencing genes and genomes to generate an enormous amount of data that can provide a better understanding of diseases. This abundance of data suggests a need for additional, repetitive studies to determine the importance of small variations in a large number of components, and this is where the benefits of automating basic molecular biology techniques using relatively inexpensive robots integrated with familiar research tools become clear.


Background Molecular biology research is guided by the


concept of the central dogma. Information stored in DNA is transcribed into messenger RNA, which is translated into specific proteins through a simple code consisting of three nucleotides for each amino acid. The gene expression process has two steps: the transcrip- tion of DNA into mRNA and the translation of mRNA into protein (see Figure 1). The proce- dures described here ultimately involve some aspect of this central dogma.


Molecular biology research is aimed at answer- ing two basic questions:


1. Which genes are being expressed in various types of cells under normal circumstances, and what is the role of the corresponding proteins?


2. What has gone wrong in a specific disease? Are genes under- or over-expressing? Are mutated proteins ineffective or over- effective?


Once these questions can be properly under- stood, it is possible to pursue mechanism-based approaches to medical intervention.


a b


Figure 1 – a) When a gene is expressed, its portion of the chromosome is exposed and copied into a strand of messenger RNA (mRNA) (b) which is then translated into proteins at the ribosome.


Figure 2 – Basic molecular biology workflow. AMERICAN LABORATORY 40 MAY 2016


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60