Diagnostics assignment:
You may choose from these distinct technologies:
Cell Sorting. PCR. Sequencing. Microarray. FISH. ELISA. GWAS. Immunohistochemistry.
A human disease has just been discovered in a small remote village in Russia, in which almost ¼ of the population has it. It makes people sick, but doesn’t kill them. It has been around for many generations. Your team of sophisticated biotechnologists has been chosen to understand this disease better. Which biotechnology technique would best be used in the situations below and briefly state
why
that technique
would the
the best choice.
Some scenarios may allow for multiple techniques to be used, so
if you need to, please discuss why one technique might be better than others.
A. (5 pts) To get a better understanding of this disease, You want to look at the overall
gene expression (looking at all the genes)
in people that have the disease, vs people that do not, to see if you can understand what genes may be upregulated or downregulated, to find patterns which may clue you into what is causing the disease. What technique would you use here? Why?
B. (5 pts) After getting the test results back from part A above, you suspect this disease is due to a genetic mutation and results in a translocation event (the top of chromosome 1 has been translocated to chromosome 10). Which technique would you use to figure out if this was the case? Why?
C. (5 pts) Your colleague suspects this disease is due to a genetic mutation in a gene that has been passed down from generation to generation, but is a more subtle mutation (Perhaps an SNP?). Which technique would you use to identify the
region of the genome
where the mutation might lie? Why?
D. (5 pts) Another colleague suspects that the disease could be due to some sort of
E.coli
bacteria that is in the water that most people drink from. Maybe some people are more susceptible to the bacteria than others. What technique could you use to detect this? Why?
E. (5 pts) After reviewing your case log for similar diseases, it turns out you have seen a disease like this before in another group of people. In the previous case, the disease was a genetic disease, where there is a deletion of the middle half of an already characterized gene (missing 300 nucleotides). Which technique would you use to detect this deletion? Why?