Gene Expression & Mutation Lab
Description
This virtual lab lets postgraduate biology students work through a complete gene-expression pipeline as an interactive simulation rather than a static diagram. Starting from a DNA template, students drag RNA nucleotides to transcribe a pre-mRNA strand, identify and splice out introns by locating their GT...AG boundaries, and translate the resulting mature mRNA into a protein using the codon table — seeing the DNA, pre-mRNA, mature mRNA, and protein sequences side by side at every step. A dedicated Mutation Lab then lets students introduce substitutions, insertions, or deletions at any point in the sequence and classify the resulting change as silent, missense, nonsense, or frameshift, while a separate comparison view contrasts prokaryotic and eukaryotic gene architecture side by side.
Learning Outcomes
By completing this lab, students will be able to transcribe a DNA template into pre-mRNA and translate a mature mRNA sequence into its correct amino acid product using a standard codon table and the correct reading frame; identify intron boundaries using the conserved GT-AG splicing rule and explain how splicing produces a continuous open reading frame from a split gene; distinguish silent, missense, and nonsense point mutations from frameshift mutations by analyzing their effects on codon identity and reading frame; and compare the architectural differences between prokaryotic and eukaryotic genes, including intron presence, mono- versus polycistronic transcription, and the coupling (or separation) of transcription and translation.