Instructors: Guo-Liang Wang and Eric Stockinger

Click below to download handouts and reference papers as PDF files

One slides/page lecture notes

Four slides/page lecture notes

Reference paper 1

Reference paper 2

Course Video

Printed copies of handouts will not be provided in class. Please print out your own handouts.

Study questions

1. Describe differences between cDNA and oligonucleotide microarrays. What is the difference between a technical replicate and a biological replicate? If you get very different results from your technical replicates what can you conclude when comparisons are made between your experimental and control treatment samples? How does hierarchical clustering of expressed transcripts help the researcher?

2. Briefly outline the steps of generating a cDNA library. What are technical reasons for why there might be partial length cDNAs in a library? Name one method used to obtain full length cDNAs?

3. List four rationales for studying gene expression.

4. What is an EST? What are UniGenes? What is the difference between a UniGene and a Singleton? What is a digital differential display? What is the advantage of producing ESTs from both parental genotypes of a mapping population rather than just one of the two parental genotypes? When used in combination with Gene prediction software programs, what conclusions does an EST help the genome biologist make?

5. What is redundancy in the context of ESTs? How does normalization overcome redundancy?