Discovering the Genome
Now that you've watched the introductory tutorials, you are ready to explore ToxoDB using GBrowse. You will look at a specific genomic region on Chromosome 11 in Toxoplasma gondii, which is the pathogen species that causes toxoplasmosis.
The first step is to visit the following link: http://tinyurl.com/on22ahr.
- There are two genes in this 11 kilobase (Kbs) section of chromosome XI (eleven). Note that kilobase is a measure of DNA length (1 Kb = 1,000 bases, or 1,000 nucleotides).
- The genes have IDs (TGME49_312960 and TGME49_312970). A gene ID is a unique sequence of numbers and/or letters ,just like a Social Security number.
- Notice that one gene is colored in red (its orientation is from right to left relative to the chromosome). The other gene is colored in blue (its orientation is from left to right relative to the chromosome). Remember DNA is double-stranded and genes can be encoded on either strand (also referred to as the "forward" and "reverse" strands).
- Exons are displayed as boxes, and introns are the lines connecting the boxes.
- Genes have untranslated 5’ and 3’ regions (these are called “5 prime” and “3 prime UTRs”). These are part of a gene that are made into RNA but do not get translated like the protein coding section of the gene does.