Saturday, February 25, 2012

Chapter 18: Useful Materials

This video shows a brief overview of what occurs during bacterial conjugation. It talks about how plasmids (small circular piece of DNA fond naturally in many strains of bacteria) carry genes that code for antibiotic resistance. During conjugation, DNA from a plasmid can be transferred from one bacterial cell to another through pilli, which allows the exchange for genetic material.

Then.....
cue the mood music!

Next the video shows how one bacterial cell can transfer DNA to another bacterial cell. As long as the donor and recipient cell are in close contact, conjugation can occur. I thought this part was quite funny, not because it is showing how the bacterial cells are interacting with each other, but because of the mood music. The bacterial cells are trying to get it in...literally (haha I'm so funny)!



Although this video may not be as entertaining as the first one, it does provide very useful material on HIV replication. The video explains how HIV 1 replication is a multi-stage process, with each step being crucial to successful replication. Therefore, this can be a potential target of antiretroviral drugs. Overall, the expression of viral genes is called the viral reproductive cycle, resulting in the production of new viral genes or in this case, HIV.

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