Forward genetics is used to identify genes that are involved in particular biological processes. For example, genes required for disease resistance can be found by identifying mutants with reduced or increased disease resistance, genes that control flower development can be identified by searching for mutants with altered flower morphology, and genes encoding enzymes for tryptophan biosynthesis can be identified by searching for mutants that require exogenous tryptophan for growth. - [Read Forward Genetics in Arabidopsis: Finding Mutations that Cause Particular Phenotypes Protocol]
Hairpin-bisulfite PCR will be a powerful tool in studying other processes for which genetic or epigenetic information differs on the two complementary strands of DNA. Laird et al., 2003. PNAS - [Read Hairpin-bisulfite PCR: Assessing epigenetic]
The physiological reactions of mitochondria and chloroplasts can be reduced to a series of electron transfers, catalyzed by specific enzymes found within the organelles. Thus, we can study the component processes of photosynthesis and respiration by isolating the organelles and measuring specific enzyme activity associated with that organelle. - [Read Photosynthesis and Respiration - Introduction]
The light microscope allows dynamic biological processes to be imaged in their native (i.e., aqueous) environment with relatively high temporal resolution. However, the diffraction-limited resolution is low. When working at or beyond the diffraction-limited resolution of the LM, a disadvantage of fluorescence imaging is the relatively low signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio of the images. However, this can be increased significantly by video and computer technology. - [Read Watching Molecular Motors at Work by Video-Enhanced Light Microscopy]
Paraffin Embedding Protocol for molecular profiling. This Paraffin Embedding Protocol describes the processing of the tissues into sections following ethanol fixation. Molecular profiling (MP) is a technique that is used to visualize the global patterns of RNA expression or protein expression in various cell types and disease processes.