鸡快慢羽性状遗传学基础分析综合实验探索与实践

随着全国“卓越农林人才教育培养计划”的开展,我校动物科学专业设置了“卓越班”,以突出培养学生的系统思维和创新创业能力为目标开展了系列教育教学管理和课程改革。为此,我们以“鸡快、慢羽性状”为实验对象,设计了“鸡快慢羽性状遗传学基础分析”综合实验,突出培养学生用理论知识解决生产实践问题的思维和能力。本文重点介绍了该实验作为动物遗传学实验教学案例的实施过程及效果,首先从鸡的表型观察逐步深入到遗传学基础分析,利用遗传学理论指导鸡快、慢羽品系培育的育种实践。实验内容涉及伴性遗传规律和性别决定机制等遗传学理论知识,同时还涉及基因组DNA提取、基因扩增、酶切及电泳分析等一系列分子遗传学的技术方法。不仅有利于学生综合分析能力和专业技能的掌握,还有助于培养学生对动物科学专业的科研兴趣和创新意识。此综合性实验还展现了用遗传学理论指导动物品种培育实践过程,符合动物科学专业复合应用型人才培养目标的要求,其中的教学理念和方法可推广应用于其他生物学实验教学。     

加强微生物学基本操作技能训练, 提高学生的主观能动性

为了加强学生对微生物学基本操作技术的掌握,培养学生的创新精神和实践能力,从微生物学实验课程的教学内容安排、教学方式方法以及微生物学实验考核方式等几个方面进行了改革,阐述了具体措施与成效。     

创新性综合实验在食品科学专业人才培养中应用

以培养学生综合素质为指导思想,针对传统实验教学中的不足,在食品微生物实验中建立新的实验教学体系,验证性实验改为连续综合性实验,逐步引入创新设计性实验。微生物学实验改革使学生的综合能力得到了良好的训练,同时提供了实践的平台,学生可以将自己的创意通过创新性综合实验付诸实施,培养了创新意识和综合实验能力,收到良好的教学效果。     

Selection of RNA aptamers specific to active prostate-specific antigen

A counter-SELEX procedure with recombinant purified active prostate specific antigen (PSA) was used to identify specific RNA aptamers against the active PSA. We developed two different kinds of counter-SELEX methods; one includes pre-clearance step with inactive proPSA protein, and the other with tagged GST protein. After 9 iterative selection cycles, several identical RNA aptamers can be identified from both counter-SELEX methods. Real-time PCR analysis and gel retardation experiment showed that the aptamers have a specific binding activity against the active PSA, but not for GST or proPSA. These aptamers could be of potential use as specific diagnostic, imaging and/or therapeutic agents against prostate cancer.     

Journal club as a supplement to the undergraduate biochemistry laboratory

After purification of lysozyme, our biochemistry students write a research proposal that outlines a strategy for studying this enzyme after alteration by site-directed mutagenesis. Despite a literature search that yielded a wealth of background information, students were often overwhelmed by the assignment because they were not familiar with advanced techniques of protein analysis. We therefore developed a series of journal clubs in which teams of students present methods and data found in papers dealing with lysozyme. The five topics for journal clubs include; substrate binding and mechanism; spectroscopic techniques; stability analysis; two-dimensional NMR; and X-ray crystallography. After the adoption of the group talks, the quality of the research proposals improved immensely and students found the assignment to be an educationally rewarding exercise.     

西藏学生普通植物病理学教学探索

普通植物病理学是植物保护专业主干课程, 注重理论与实践相结合。为培养具有创新精神、实践能力和各方面综合素质的高级农业人才, 根据西藏学生的具体特点, 从教材选择、课堂教学、实验教学、教学实习、考核方式和师资队伍6个方面进行了探索。多种教学方法结合实验教学和教学实习为学生下基层工作奠定了坚实基础。     

分子生物学综合性实验教学的探讨与实践

分子生物学是一门实践性很强的学科,其实验教学在生物学人才培养中占有十分重要的地位;综合性实验课程的开设对于培养学生的实验技能、提高学生的动手能力以及科研创新能力至关重要.文章总结了华中农业大学分子生物学综合性实验教学的内容、方法和实验成绩评价.重点介绍了实验课的三大系列以及实验课的有效组织实施方法,以期达到提高教学质量,培养学生的综合素质的目的.     

构建生物药物分析实验教学改革新模式

生物药物分析实验是生物药物分析理论课程的重要补充,是培养学生掌握和巩固理论知识以及实验操作技能的重要途径。为适应现代高等教育对本科生的培养要求,对生物药物分析原有单一的实验教学模式进行改革已势在必行。我学院生物药物分析实验教学改革从实验教学内容、实验教学方法、实验教学手段等方面进行实践探索,建立了“验证性．综合设计性实验教学”、“科研一实验教学相结合”、“开放式实验教学”等新型的实验教学模式,在近几年的本科实验教学活动中,对于培养学生的实际操作能力、独立分析问题和解决问题的能力,团队协作等方面的能力起到了明显的效果,受到学生好评。     

医学微生物学实验教学中培养学生创新能力的探索

为培养医学本科生的创新能力,提高实验课教学质量,调动学生学习的积极性和主动性,我们在实验课教学中围绕“培养学生创新思维”这一主题,进行了改进医学微生物学实验课教学方法的探索,引导学生积极思考,增强了学生分析问题、解决问题的能力,提升了医学微生物学实验课的教学效果。     

Healthy Bodies,Toxic Medicines: College Students and the Rhetorics of Flu Vaccination

This article examines flu vaccination beliefs and practices produced during a survey of undergraduate students in Spring 2012 (IRB#10-732). This research uses the methods of rhetorical analysis — or the study of persuasive features and arguments used in language — to examine statements respondents made regarding flu and flu vaccine. In these responses, students generated unique categories of arguments about the perceived dangers of flu vaccination, including the assertion that vaccines cause disease (including illnesses and conditions other than flu), that vaccines are toxic medicines, and that vaccines carry unknown, population-wide risks that are inadequately acknowledged. This study provides insight into vaccination beliefs and rationales among a population at risk of flu (college students) and suggests that further study of this population may yield important keys to addressing flu vaccine concerns as expressed by college students. Rhetorical analysis also offers a useful set of methods to understanding vaccination beliefs and practices, adding to existing methods of study and analysis of vaccination practices and beliefs in medicine and public health.     

Methods for molecular dynamics simulations of protein folding/unfolding in solution

All atom molecular dynamics simulations have become a standard method for mapping equilibrium protein dynamics and non-equilibrium events like folding and unfolding. Here, we present detailed methods for performing such simulations. Generic protocols for minimization, solvation, simulation, and analysis derived from previous studies are also presented. As a measure of validation, our water model is compared with experiment. An example of current applications of these methods, simulations of the ultrafast folding protein Engrailed Homeodomain are presented including the experimental evidence used to verify their results. Ultrafast folders are an invaluable tool for studying protein behavior as folding and unfolding events measured by experiment occur on timescales accessible with the high-resolution molecular dynamics methods we describe. Finally, to demonstrate the prospect of these methods for folding proteins, a temperature quench simulation of a thermal unfolding intermediate of the Engrailed Homeodomain is described.     

八年制医学生实验动物教学中的心理障碍分析及对策

本文总结了在八年制医学生实验动物学实验课教学中的一些体会,研究了教学过程中出现的某些不良心理特征,并提出了相应的解决方法及对策,以提高实验课的教学效果。希望为医学生未来科研工作的顺利进行搭建一座有效的桥梁。     

生物化学实验教学改革初探

结合生物化学实验教学过程中存在的一些问题,列举了一些实验课程教学改革的主要方法。如：增加综合性和创新性实验,让学生参与到实验课的准备过程中,采取灵活多变的教学方法以及完善实验考核方式等。通过这些方法的实施,充分调动了学生的学习积极性,培养了学生的动手能力和综合创新能力,进一步提高了教学质量。     

Comparing Binding Modes of Analogous Fragments Using NMR in Fragment-Based Drug Design: Application to PRDX5

Fragment-based drug design is one of the most promising approaches for discovering novel and potent inhibitors against therapeutic targets. The first step of the process consists of identifying fragments that bind the protein target. The determination of the fragment binding mode plays a major role in the selection of the fragment hits that will be processed into drug-like compounds. Comparing the binding modes of analogous fragments is a critical task, not only to identify specific interactions between the protein target and the fragment, but also to verify whether the binding mode is conserved or differs according to the fragment modification. While X-ray crystallography is the technique of choice, NMR methods are helpful when this fails. We show here how the ligand-observed saturation transfer difference (STD) experiment and the protein-observed ¹⁵N-HSQC experiment, two popular NMR screening experiments, can be used to compare the binding modes of analogous fragments. We discuss the application and limitations of these approaches based on STD-epitope mapping, chemical shift perturbation (CSP) calculation and comparative CSP sign analysis, using the human peroxiredoxin 5 as a protein model.     

New strategies for the determination of macromolecular structure in solution

Non-crystallographic approaches to the determination of protein structure must solve the problem of insufficient and low information content experimental data. Most successful methods augment experimentation with theoretical constraints (for example, potential energy functions or optimization error metrics). We believe it is important to separate the contributions of experimentation and theory in the construction of protein structure. The PROTEAN system defines protein topology on the basis of experimental data alone. Its performance on three data sets, derived from the lac-repressor headpiece of E. coli, sperm whale myoglobin, and domain 1 of bacteriophage T4 lysozyme, indicates that there may be families of related conformations that are consistent with the experimental data. These conformations provide insight into the strengths and weaknesses in the data sets. They also provide a set of structures with which to begin theoretical refinements. We outline here a strategy which maintains a clear distinction between refinements based on theory and those based on experiment, and thus allows a careful analysis of the properties of such refinement methods.     

Revisiting the prediction of protein function at CASP6

The ability to predict the function of a protein, given its sequence and/or 3D structure, is an essential requirement for exploiting the wealth of data made available by genomics and structural genomics projects and is therefore raising increasing interest in the computational biology community. To foster developments in the area as well as to establish the state of the art of present methods, a function prediction category was tentatively introduced in the 6th edition of the Critical Assessment of Techniques for Protein Structure Prediction (CASP) worldwide experiment. The assessment of the performance of the methods was made difficult by at least two factors: (a) the experimentally determined function of the targets was not available at the time of assessment; (b) the experiment is run blindly, preventing verification of whether the convergence of different predictions towards the same functional annotation was due to the similarity of the methods or to a genuine signal detectable by different methodologies. In this work, we collected information about the methods used by the various predictors and revisited the results of the experiment by verifying how often and in which cases a convergent prediction was obtained by methods based on different rationale. We propose a method for classifying the type and redundancy of the methods. We also analyzed the cases in which a function for the target protein has become available. Our results show that predictions derived from a consensus of different methods can reach an accuracy as high as 80%. It follows that some of the predictions submitted to CASP6, once reanalyzed taking into account the type of converging methods, can provide very useful information to researchers interested in the function of the target proteins.     

SIMAGE: simulation of DNA-microarray gene expression data

Background  

Simulation of DNA-microarray data serves at least three purposes: (i) optimizing the design of an intended DNA microarray experiment, (ii) comparing existing pre-processing and processing methods for best analysis of a given DNA microarray experiment, (iii) educating students, lab-workers and other researchers by making them aware of the many factors influencing DNA microarray experiments.     

改进生物化学实验教学模式,培养学生综合能力

为适应现代医学教育的发展,加强学生能力的培养,提高学生综合素质,对生物化学实验内容和教学形式进行了改革,在实验内容上设置了综合性实验;在教学方法上注重突出学生的主体作用,学生主动参与实验设计、实验讨论、实验方案的确定,独立完成实验过程的教学形式.实践证明,新的教学模式达到了预期的教学效果,有推广价值.     

Pizza and pasta help students learn metabolism

In this article, we report on an experiment designed to improve the learning of metabolic biochemistry by nutrition and medical undergraduate students. Twelve students participated in a monitored lunch and had their blood extracted for analysis 1) before lunch, 2) 30 min after lunch, and 3) 3 h after lunch. The subjects were divided in two groups. One group had a hyperglicidic meal [pasta plus orange juice: 80% carbohydrate, 10% protein, and 10% lipid (estimated values)] and the other group had a hyperlipidic meal (calabresi pizza plus diet soda: 36% carbohydrate, 18% protein, and 46% lipid). Individual quantities of food were based on body mass index, age, and sex. The blood parameters analyzed were glucose, triglycerides (TG), and urea. Glucose remained constant in the three measurements in both groups. The TG concentration in the pasta group was constant before and after lunch but increased significantly during the evening. In the pizza group, TG increased after lunch and remained constant in the evening. Levels of urea increased only in the evening, specially in the pizza group. These results were used for the final biochemistry exam. With the maximum score set as 10, the average score was 6.0 +/- 2.4 (n = 102). We considered this activity a unique way of evaluating important issues on metabolism, because students had several hours to work on the final exam (with free access to a bibliography). It was also a good didactic experience (problem-based learning like) for the subject students, because they had to work in all phases of the experiment (idealization, realization, and analysis) and participated actively in the elaboration and correction of the exam.     

基础生物化学实验教学对学生技能的培养

面对国内实验教学的新形势和新要求,改进和完善本科实验教学日益紧迫。介绍了本科基础生物化学实验教学的内容与实践,根据生化实验课的特点,对实验教学内容、方式等进行改进,强调了以基本技术围绕基本实验与综合性实验为中心,培养学生的实践能力、创新能力与科学思维,重点强化了实验技能与素质的训练,探索了生化实验教学中培养高素质、综合型创新人才之路。