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General Biology (LC1)

Electrophoresis Equipment Not Required

This program is a complete laboratory course for teaching contemporary biology at the beginning college level. The program is suitable as a full-semester course that meets once per week and presents an experimental approach to the study of the biological sciences. The table of contents of the comprehensive program manual is shown below. The program is designed for up to 16 students working in teams of two and provides essentially all of the chemicals, accessories, and instructions that are needed to teach fifteen 60-90 minute laboratory sessions. Electrophoresis equipment is not required. To use this program, you will need microscopes, a small centrifuge, ethyl alcohol and acetic acid. The price of the course is about $26 per student per semester if these items are available in your teaching laboratory.

As an introduction to the course, students study selected topics in contemporary animal and plant biology including enzyme action, cell respiration, and evolution at the molecular level. Novel experiments are then presented on mitosis, osmoregulation and enzyme distribution which serve to help students gain an appreciation for cell structure and function. Protein biological chemistry forms the next section of the course where the technique of gel filtration chromatography is used to study the structure and function of biologically important proteins in blood. In the final section of the program, students are introduced to selected topics on the molecular biology of DNA including DNA isolation and basic DNA cloning procedures.

Features
Suitability - College-Level General Biology
Lab Schedule - One 1-2 hour lab session per week for a full semester.
Cost - $29 per student per semester excluding costs of manuals and equipment.

The experiments that comprise this course were carefully selected from Basic Programs 1-4.

B1-1 Properties of DNA (View Individual Experiment)

The DNA molecule from a single human chromosome is about 4 cm long and the length of DNA in an individual is about 200 times the distance from the earth to the sun. Isolated DNA in a test tube is also a long, stiff molecule. When alcohol is added to a DNA solution, the DNA fibers precipitate and can be spooled onto a glass rod. This feature of DNA is illustrated in the exercise, which provides enough purified DNA for 16 students working in pairs to perform the experiment.

B1-2 Cell Fractionation and DNA Isolation (View Individual Experiment)

Students isolate nuclei from calf thymus tissue and examine them microscopically. The DNA is then extracted from the nuclei by a simple procedure that uses a detergent and alcohol. Microscopes and a small centrifuge are desirable but not absolutely necessary for the exercise.

B1-3 Gene Function and Cloning in Bacteria. (View Individual Experiment)

Occasionally, E. coli cells are found in nature that are resistant to the toxic effects of the antibiotic ampicillin. In this exercise, students create such an ampicillin-resistant population of E. coli by introducing into bacterial cells a plasmid that contains an ampicillin-resistance gene. Sufficient sterile materials are supplied for sixteen platings. The introduction of plasmid DNA into bacterial cells is called transformation and has enabled scientists to obtain large quantities of more than 1000 genes including those for human interferon, insulin, and growth hormone.

B2-1 and B2-2 Quantifying Amylase Activity (View Individual Experiment)

This exercise begins with a discussion of the digestive enzymes produced by the salivary glands, stomach, intestine and pancreas. The digestive system of a rodent is provided to familiarize students with anatomical features of the digestive organs of a mammal. Students are then given the opportunity to prepare enzyme extracts from pancreatic tissue and to determine the amount of amylase in the extracts and in their own saliva using the procedure described in the figure on this page.

B2-3 Proteases and Factors that Influence Enzyme Activity (View Individual Experiment)

Students contrast the effects of pH on the activities of gastric pepsin and pancreatic chymotrypsin and relate their results to the acidic pH of the stomach and neutral pH of the small intestine. The effects of temperature and thermal denaturation on enzyme activity are also investigated.

B2-5 Serum Enzymes and Disease (View Individual Experiment)

Tissue injury often results in the leakage of large amounts of cellular enzymes into the circulatory system and measurements of the amounts and types of enzymes in serum are frequently made for the diagnosis of human disease. For example, inflammation of the pancreas is accompanied by the release of pancreatic amylase and proteases into the blood stream. In this exercise, students determine the levels of amylase and proteases in serum and compare these levels to those found in saliva and pancreatic extracts.

B2-6 Identifying a Specific Enzyme in Chicken Erythrocytes by Enzyme Cytochemistry. (View Individual Experiment)

The concept that different enzymes are found in different regions of a cell is illustrated in this exercise. Here, students use the technique of enzyme cytochemistry to show that the enzyme lactate dehydrogenase is located in the cytoplasm of chicken erythrocytes. The exercise introduces students to the basic structure of animal cells and provides an illustration of an important technique used in modern cell biology.

Eight chicken blood smears are provided for the experiment and microscopes are required.

B3 1-3 Mini Program in Chromatography (View Individual Experiment)

1. Separating Molecules by Gel Filtration

Students fill their chromatographic columns with packing material and separate three colored molecules of known molecular weights as shown in the photograph below. The exercise illustrates how components of a complex mixture can be separated by chromatography and introduces the concept of the standard curve for determining the size of an unknown protein.

2. The Molecular Weight of Hemoglobin
Students determine the size of hemoglobin and estimate the number of amino acid residues in this protein.

B4-1 Effects of Temperature on Cell Respiration. (View Individual Experiment)

Cell respiration can be viewed as a series of enzyme catalyzed reactions in which carbohydrates, proteins, and fats are broken down to carbon dioxide and water with the release of energy. During the process, hydrogen is removed from the fuel molecules and oxygen is consumed. With this background information, students measure oxygen consumption and hydrogen liberation in germinating barley at different temperatures. The program provides eight calibrated respirometers for measurement of oxygen consumption and the chemicals required to perform a graphic dye reduction assay.

B4-2 Extraction and Analysis of an Enzyme from Wheat . (View Individual Experiment)

Acid phosphatase is present in many plant tissues where it catalyzes the removal of phosphate groups from macromolecules at low pH. In this exercise, students prepare a cell-free extract from wheat germ and determine the amount of the enzyme present in the extract. The experiment offers practical experience with enzyme extraction procedures and is an excellent introduction to the analysis of enzyme activity and basic enzyme kinetics.

A colorimeter is desirable but not absolutely necessary for this exercise.

B4-3 Location of an Enzyme in Plant Cells and Tissues (View Individual Experiment)

Flowering plants are multicellular organisms and different enzymes are frequently produced in different tissues and in different cell types. This concept is illustrated in the first part of the exercise where students use an enzyme histochemical procedure to show that peroxidase is produced by cells that comprise a layer in the corn seed called the aleurone as shown in the figure below. In the second part of the exercise, a similar procedure is used by the student to show that peroxidase is found in the cell wall of onion epithelial cells.

B4-4 Osmolarity and a Cytological Bioassay. (View Individual Experiment)

In this exercise, osmosis is examined in living onion epithelial cells which are used in a cytological assay to determine the osmolarity of an unknown sucrose solution provided with the program.

B4-5 Mitotic Activity and Cell Respiration. (View Individual Experiment)

The onion root has served as a model system for the study of mitosis, cell elongation, and cell differentiation in plants. In this experiment, students examine various segments of onion roots for cytological differences and then correlate their cytological findings with different respiration rates in the root segments. The exercise provides practical experience with tissue fixing, staining and slide making procedures, and introduces students to the concepts of cell division, the cell cycle, and differentiation in plant systems.

Complete Lab Courses. (Learn More)

Complete College-Level Laboratory Courses.

Prices

Catalog # Price Description
LC1 624.87

The Chemical Package for 16 students working in pairs plus 17 student manuals and one instructor manual.
LC1-C 458.81

The Chemical Package for 16 students working in pairs plus one student manual and one instructor manual (The student manual may be reproduced for educational purposes.)
LC1-SM 20.57

Sample Student Manual (132 pages) plus one instructor manual
LC1-X 143.79

Nine Student Manuals plus one instructor manual.