What's up everyone! =) Christmas break is almost here!
Anyway, this week in Mr.Finley's science class we studied more about DNA!
Okay one of the things we did was find out Mr. Finley's treasured moon rock was stolen! The culprit only left a single dirty blond colored string of hair! =0 He instructed us that we would test any subjects DNA to see if we could find the horrible master mind behind this unforgivable crime! Ha ha ha ha! Sorry that was just really fun to write.
Anyway the suspects for our class were David, Drew, Stephan Justina, and Kirsti. I think that was it. Please tell me if I forgot some one okay? =0
The culprit had to be medium height so I was immediately disqualified.=(
So sad! You no how evil I am! Ha ha!=)
Next we had to take our suspect's cheek cells and break the cell down in a lysis so all that was left was the DNA. To make a lysis buffer you take 1/5 teaspoon of salt, 1 tablespoon of baking soda, 1/2 or 3/4 a cup of water, and a tiny squirt of dish soap.
Dish soap is an emulsifier which means it breaks up grease and cleans things, like dishes. Cool, big word, go impress your friends. =)
Since dish soap works as an emulsifier it breaks up the cell membrane and the nucleus leaving the DNA.
Carly, Justina, and I took a test tube and poured 1 milliliter of the lysis buffer in it. Then we swabbed Justina's mouth for cheek cells for about 3 minutes. Next we took the swab with Justina's cheek cells and mixed it in the test tube. We had to be careful not to mix so hard bubbles formed. Even though bubbles are awesome. =)
Next we put 1 milliliter of pineapple juice in the concoction. Pineapple juice is a protease which destroys proteins. So tell Mom or Grandma or Dad or Grandpa or who ever to never try making jell-o with real pineapple!(Artificial store bought pineapple jell-o might work.) =)
After that we slowly dripped in alcohol. Careful with this alcohol though it's like a hundred times stronger and smellier than rubbing alcohol. Also if the alcohol goes in to fast your whole experiment is messed up and you have to start all over! =0
Then we corked the tube, labeled it with our person and mixed it for 5 minutes.
Finally we let it sit and left the rest to the AP students. I wonder who took Mr.Finley's moon rock? Mr.Finley gave us a website lab thing to find out what the AP kids did. This is the site: http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/labs/gel/
Here is what we found:
Q: What is did the AP kids do with our DNA?
A: The AP students did something called electrophoresis. Electrophoresis is a way to organize DNA according to height.
Q: How does the DNA get organized?
A: The DNA organizes it's self by making a gel shaped kinda like a box, putting DNA in the holes of the gel called wells, and running an electrical current through it. The DNA then migrates down through the gel because of the pattern of positive and negative charges.
Q: Is the "gel" actually a gel?
A: No, it is a sort of filter with lots of tiny holes. Almost like jell-o! =)
Q: What is the electrophoresis process?
A: The electrophoresis process is
1: Make the gel for the DNA by taking a powder called agarose, and mixing in a liquid buffer.
2: Put plastic wrap over a flask with the mixture in it so the liquid doesn't boil over. Put the flask in a microwave until the agarose melts.
3: Take a box and pour in the fluid. Stick in a gel comb. Wait for the gel to cool for a half hour.
4: Remove the comb and you have holes or wells for your DNA.
5: Take a electrophoresis box, pour in a liquid buffer and place the gel in the box. Make sure you didn't take the gel out of the mold.=o
6:Take a pippet and put some DNA in the gel wells along with a loading buffer and a DNA size standard. It is really hard to get the fluid into the gel so be patient.
7:Hook up a black and red wire to a power supply. (Careful with electrical stuff! Black is negative and red is positive!=)) Look for small bubbles that tell you a current is on.
8: The DNA moves away from the negative charge towards the positive charge, which is at the other end of the gel.
9: Take the gel out of the electrophoresis box and mold and stain it for a half an hour.
10: Compare your results under a UV light box. (Don't go blind wear goggles! =0)
Q:How does DNA make patterns that we can study?
A: First of course we have to stain the gel so we can study the DNA, but when the electrical current flows through the gel short strands migrate quicker and farther away from the gel than than long strands. So , the DNA strands that have close to the same lengths group together. Then we look at the way the DNA assembled and compare lengths.
We also read an article on DNA:
Can DNA Demand A Verdict?
Interesting facts from this article is DNA is used in cases, though not often.
When DNA is used it can help eliminate tons of suspects. Only .1% of our DNA is unique! DNA samples can easily be collected from crime scenes. Human error however can cause problems and mix-ups, so I think detectives should run three tests just to be sure their results match. Also most states only allow six months for tests of DNA.
All this information really makes you appreciate DNA.
2 comments:
Wowee! I have waaaaay to much free time! Hahahahah! I write waaaay to much!
This is an awesome blog! I really like the Q and A section.
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