Assignment Task:
You can use cloning to understand the function of a piece of DNA, that is not an expressed sequence. Thus, you discover a novel DNA element that has an unusual property and you want to discover its function. For this, you transfect various kinds of eukaryotic cells with this DNA element and observe that after transfection your inserted DNA, which we will call Ele-1 (Element-1). You use your clone to make a stable transfection, meaning you use recombination mechanisms to insert the DNA into the host genome. You look at a host of various cell lines from various tissues. After transfecting Ele-1 you discover that each transfected cell-line displayed an altered phenotype. In each different cell-line you notice that different genes are activated after you insert Ele-1 into the genome. After several assays, you realize that in every case, that the activated genes are always near Ele-1 in the genome. a Northern Blot and discover that each up-regulated gene was expressed at very low levels in non-Ele-1 transfected cells, but following transfection of Ele-1, which was inserted nearby, the genes get transcribed at extremely high levels, but ELE-1 is not transcribed. How is Ele-1 functioning? Explain your answer.