In this assignment, those of you that do not know how to access a gene database will be introduced to this.

Clik on the link: NCBI

a window will open

Top left; in the menu "Search" scroll the menu and choose "Gene" (this is he individual gene database): in the small window on the right, tape the name of the gene you are looking for (example: <hemoglobin, beta chain, homo sapiens>), then click "Go". This will make you entering a list of all the records containing files of your gene of interest. Now you can scroll the list and choose (for example, if you made hemoglobin beta chain, choose now HBBI)

Scroll the page to look at all the information available. In the bottom, you see a graphics, representing the gene. There are several codes around the image, you can click these to access to sequence information. If you click the largest of these (in black) you can access the genomic sequence. In the example above, if you click "NC_000011.9" and choose in the small menu that appears " GENBANK" you will be redirected to the genome sequence of the beta-globin locus in humans.

In this file there are several lines of information, then if you scroll down, you reach proper sequence infomation ("FEATURES"),

<Source> and <gene> give lenghts and position. <mRNA> indicates how the mRNA is composed (exons joining), and <CDS> gives you positions and jining of the ORF (open reading frame).

Look at the sequence now: it is organized in lines of 60 nt, in 10-nt blocks; numbers represent positions to your convenience.

You may now identify the essential parts of the gene. Try to identify the transcription start site and the start and stop of the ORF.

Go to Assignment BMG2 now.