Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Dickson Despommier, and Rich Condit
Vincent, Dickson, and Rich continue Virology 101 with a discussion of how viruses with DNA genomes replicate their genetic information.
Click the arrow above to play, or right-click to download TWiV #96 (65 MB .mp3, 90 minutes)
Subscribe (free): iTunes, RSS, email
Links for this episode:
- Figures for this episode (pdf)
- RNA silencing as a plant immune system (Trends in Genetics)
- Photos of transgenic petunia (PLoS Biology)
- Letters read on TWiV 96
- Video of this episode – view above or at YouTube
Weekly Science Picks
Rich – Breast milk sugars give infants a protective coat (NY Times and PNAS article)
Vincent – The Great American University by Jonathan R. Cole
Send your virology questions and comments to twiv@microbe.tv.
Thought this virus cartoon was cute
http://i.imgur.com/gHElA.jpg
Great cartoon, thanks for sharing.
You haven’t forgotten about the video, right?
Haven’t forgotten the video of TWiV 96 – hope to get it up this week.
Thanks. I forget how long good editing takes…
I have delayed listening to the podcast because it sounded like the video would really help clarify what you and the others were saying.
Thanks for the video!
I’m listening to this podcast because I’m taking Dr. Racaniello’s Virology 1 class on Coursera. We just finished the lectures on DNA synthesis and I wanted a review source for the material. I have a comment about the slide showing the DNA structure with the structure of ribose in the upper right hand corner. Shouldn’t the structure be 3′ deoxyribose instead? In this discussion Dr. V. says that the backbone sugar is ribose (11:55). In the big scale of things it’s probably not that important but since a lot of listeners may not be familiar with the biochemistry of DNA It’s important.
For anyone interested in why DNA contains 3’deoxyribose and not 2’deoxyribose here’s a reference that provides an answer to this question:
R. Breslin and T. Sheppard, Pure & Appl. Chem., 68(11): 2027-2041, 1996.
The authors provide data to show that although the base pairing relationships are the same between 3′ & 2′ deoxyribose containing duplexes, the 2′ form is less stable under physiological conditions.
Dickson asked why the denatured DNA molecules reanneal following melting. This occurs because the molecule seeks the lowest possible energy state which is the correctly paired structure.
Thanks for doing the podcasts. They are great,
Hi, I noticed this video and the one in TWiV 66 (reverse transcription) are both cut short to around 9 minutes. Having listened to the audio version first I know the recordings are much longer than that. Is that intentional or has there been an issue with the upload?
In any case, thanks for the podcast. I used to listen to TWiV regularly around 2010 and now came back ten years later to find a staggering number of almost 600 episodes. You guys are fantastic!