BIOINF 523 Homework Days 5/6 (13 points)

1) In any human cell, ribosomal RNA (rRNA) will be by far the most
abundant form of RNA found. How is it possible to isolate mRNAs away
from rRNAs? (2 points)

mRNAs have a key property that allows them to be purified away

from other RNA molecules in a cell – poly A tail of 30-200nt length in
eukaryotic cells.    mRNA can either be extracted by using a column based
method where the total RNA is ran over an oligo dT column and the flow
through is discarded or using magnetic beads.

2) A method commonly used to identify transcription factor binding sites

in the genome is     ChIP-Seq (1 point)

3) What does a position weight matrix describe? (1 point)

Position Weight Matrix or Position-Specific Scoring Matrix   is used for

representation of motifs in biological sequences – describes the observed
probability of basepairs in all the position of a sequence .               Often
represented as sequence logos, PWM is an alternative to consensus
sequences.  

4) An example of a use of SNP chips (1 point) is:

in linkage analysis to map disease loci, and determine disease
susceptibility genes in individuals.