"Official" 2014 USABO thread

<p><a href=“Northern Blot Method”>http://www.bio.davidson.edu/courses/genomics/method/northernblot.html&lt;/a&gt;
This page says ssDNA is used as a probe
But I honestly hope that you are right!</p>

<p>how does @spazzer4501 get a 56.75??? its only a 50 point open exam…</p>

<p>I agree with CasparianTiger on the northern blotting question - you can’t use poly(A) DNA to probe for mRNA. Also, I don’t remember the specifics of the question, but I think they mentioned using an RNA probe in one of the later steps.</p>

<p>Good point. I’m not sure then. Although I’ve never heard of using ssdna (much less poly a specifically) to lower background. Maybe they miswrote the question and meant to write poly t ;p</p>

<p>@huhululu‌ smh didn’t you see the ec on the back? If you wrote a coherent well developed essay about how much you love CEE they add an extra 10 points to ur test </p>

<p>i think the poly(A) ssDNA is used to stabilize the mRNAs</p>

<p>oh nevermind</p>

<p>I looked over several northern blotting protocols, and they usually use fish sperm DNA. I guessed the test changed it to Poly-A ssDNA to screw us over</p>

<p>.</p>

<p>Would it be safe to put prolactinoma for the free response question that was for pathology? </p>

<p>That would make sense. Does anyone know the actual answer, and how hyperglycemia would be a symptom? </p>

<p>Pituitary tumor. Hyperglycemia is from high cortisol or ACTH levels. </p>

<p>What other hormones were affected? FSH? CRH?</p>

<p>Anything secreted by the pituitary </p>

<p>anyone put MSH :P</p>

<p>Actually, if it was a posterior pituitary tumor, then the hypothalamus would have to be involved, because the hypothalamus makes the actual hormones and sends it down to the posterior pituitary whereas the anterior pituitary makes its own hormones. So, if you said the pituitary, as a whole, had a tumor, then you would have to mention that the hypothalamus also had a tumor, because it makes and delivers the posterior pituitary hormones to the posterior pituitary. And, if the hypothalamus had a tumor then everything in her body would go out of whack, and she would have been dead. This is why I think that it would only be an anterior pituitary tumor. And, all of the symptoms that were mentioned were only related to the anterior pituitary. So, I don’t think they wanted people to include posterior pituitary hormones for three hormones they wanted, because those hormones would be controlled by a negative feedback loop to the hypothalamus which would stop making the hormones all together.</p>

<p>Honestly I don’t think it matters. The point of the question was that you correctly diagnose which gland was malfunctioning and provide a few additional examples of hormones secreted by it. Would probably be a minor deduction if anything </p>

<p>wait is this answer wrong
i wrote
number 1 : tumor in the prolactin secreting region of the anterior pituitary gland located in the brain, which causes abnormal secretion of the hormone prolactin as well as compress/pressuring other parts of the brain to cause constant headaches as well as disruption of the optic system</p>

<p>number 2 : ACTH is wrong (hyperglyecimia and hyperwhatever)
the thing is for 3 other hormones involved i wrote epinephrine, norepinephrine, and glucocorticoid because these hormones are affected by ACTH which seemed to be the problem in the case of hyperglycemia and stuff
and i wrote that epinephrine hormone causes vasoconstriction and higher blood glucose level
would this be acceptable? i thought this was a 25 point answer </p>

<p>I put prolactinoma for the first part also because at that point the only hormone hypersecreted was the prolactin.
@BasedBioGod I feel like the question wasn’t really asking for three hormones that might be affected as an extension of the ACTH problem, more of what other hormones could possibly malfunction from the very root of the cause-- the tumor</p>

<p>I thought she also had diabetes and that’s why she has like hyperglycemia… lol, so I put like insulin or something</p>

<p>prolactinoma yeah, that’s what i wrote, kind of, well i was referring to that when i said tumor in prolactin secreting region. But i don’t think my answer would be erroneous under their question under the assumption that ACTH is correct answer. I guess they wanted other anterior pituitary hormones (which i obviously know very well) but I thought that question was connected to the hyperglycemia question so i wrote everythign related to ACTH. </p>

<p>Anyone know who like the graders are? They obviously are very good at the area right? i’m just worried they might be like volunteers with like answer sheets and just mark anything that’s not what the answer sheet says as something wrong </p>