Acquire in-depth knowledge of genome modification techniques; recognize the molecular elements used in the different approaches; understand the basis of genetic reprogramming; appropriate the different methodologies in order to be able to apply them independently.
Course Prerequisites
It is required a deep knowledge of core aspects of molecular and cellular biology.
Teaching Methods
The course is taught in-person usually in the Fall semester. After the introduction and explanation of the different topics, several examples taken from the literature are provided in order to clarify the purpose of the described methodologies and applications.
Assessment Methods
The exam takes place in person (except for specific situations such as: Erasmus period or Covid infection) and is an oral exam. The first 25 minutes are dedicated to the presentation of an article chosen by the student from recent literature and concerning one or more of the approaches described during the course. The student must receive the Teacher's approval of the selected article at least one week before the exam. The remaining part of the exam concerns the discussion of the article and a testing of the student's knowledge about the course topics.
Texts
The teacher provides all the material used during the course lessons. No specific texts are recommended.
Contents
The aim of the course is to give basic and advanced knowledge on transgenic animals, ranging from the Drosophila, C. elegans, Xenopus laevis and Zebrafish organisms to the Mouse system. It covers the techniques and applications of knock-out, knock-in and knock-down animals, as well as the generation and use of conditional transgenic organisms designed to inactivate, express and silence genes in an inducible, tissue-specific manner. Besides the homologous recombination and site-specific recombination through Cre/Flp recombinases, the course faces the use of zinc-finger nucleases, TALENS recombinant proteins and CRISPR/Cas9 technologies for genome editing. Moreover, the course describes large-scale approaches of functional genomics in transgenic animals, like gene-trapping and genome-wide screenings by RNAi libraries. It includes a discussion on the mouse system as an invaluable genetic tool to engineer strains that show disease conditions similar to those of human disorders and some "disease model" mouse strains are detailed described. The topics include the subject of genetic reprogramming by cell-cell fusion, nuclear transfer technology (animal cloning) and generation of induced Pluripotent Stem cells (iPS). The use of large size animals for biopharming or xenografting is also discussed.
