Molecular Genetics and Development

- To give an overview of genomic imprinting, when it is initiated and how imprinting disorders can arise - Describe key events in X-inactivation including the role of the Xist non-coding RNA

- Discuss the evidence for the nodal morphogen acting during mesoderm induction. - Discuss the concept of the vertebrate dorsal organiser. - Discuss the evidence that the brachyury transcription factor is a conserved regulator of germ layer specification. - Draw conclusions regarding the molecular pathways regulating development of Urbilateria.

- Provide an overview of the polycomb and trithorax group complexes and their activities - Describe evidence that indicates stem cell chromatin is in an open ‘permissive’ state - Understand what is bivalent chromatin and why it may be important for stem cell biology and development - Understand the steps of chromatin immunoprecipitation and why it is a useful technique in epigenetic studies - Describe the Nodal signalling example and experimental approach, and understand how it illustrates ...

- Describe experiments that defined compartments of cell lineage restriction. - Define a compartment and describe the evidence showing that the parasegment is a compartment and the developmentally important unit of the fly. - Describe genetic experiments demonstrating that HOM-C genes regulate parasegment identity in Drosophila. - Evaluate whether the vertebrate Hox genes share a conserved function with Drosophila HomC genes

- Identify the important signalling centres in the developing limb bud and describe the experiments that identified these centres and demonstrated their importance. - Describe the experimental evidence for the role of FGF signalling in limb bud outgrowth - Describe the experimental evidence that shows that Shh acts as a morphogen to pattern the anterior-posterior axis of the limb bud. - Describe how the important signalling centres in the limb bud co-ordinately regulate pattern formation in the ...

- Appreciate and describe the molecular mechanisms underlying neural induction - Describe TGF-beta (TGF-β) signal transduction and the differences between the BMP versus nodal pathways - Discuss the experiments that demonstrate a role for BMP antagonists in vertebrate neural induction - Describe how antisense morpholino oligos can be used to inhibit gene function - Appreciate and describe the differences between the processes of neural induction versus neurogenesis

-Describe the hierarchy of gene activity that regulates Drosophila segmentation -Distinguish and explain methods used to investigate protein vs mRNA expression -Describe the syncytial nature of the early stages of fly development and understand its significance. -Understand and describe at the molecular level how the Gap genes regulate the expression of Eve stripe 2 -Make predictions about segment polarity gene expression in a pair-rule mutant embryo or about pair-rule gene expression in a Gap m...

- Understand how the neural crest contributes to cardiac development and the pathology underlying congenital cardiac abnormalities. - Explain how certain SNPs might contribute to congenital abnormalities. - Discuss the evidence that Notch signalling is important during cardiac morphogenesis

- Discuss the evidence supporting a role for tinman homologues in heart development - Discuss the anatomical and molecular evidence supporting the theory of dorsoventral axis inversion during the evolution of protostome and deuterostome lineages. - Describe the conserved features of Hox gene cluster organisation. - Appreciate and discuss how changes in the expression and activity of Hox genes have contributed to changes in anatomy during animal evolution. - Draw conclusions regarding the molecul...

- Describe the different types of animal body symmetry and the main body axes of bilaterally symmetrical animals. - Describe the features that define diploblasts versus triploblasts. - Describe the features that define protostomes versus deuterostomes. - Understand the importance of the Ediacaran and Cambrian fauna in animal evolution. - Describe the common features of phylotypic stage chordate embryos. - Discuss the evidence indicating that Pax6 is a conserved regulator of eye development. - ...