a Related Biological Terms

A dispersed intermediately repetitive DNA sequence found in the human genome in about three hundred thousand copies. The sequence is about 300 bp long. The name Alu comes from the restriction endonuclease AluI that cleaves it.

In lungs, the narrowed ending of bronchioles that opens into a cluster of alveoli.

The tissue that covers the external surface of the alveoli (air sacs of microscopic size in the lung whose function is to facilitate the exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide from the air to blood).

The passage of air into and out of the alveoli (microscopic sacs in the lungs wherein gas exchange occurs).

of a surface or structure shaped like a honeycomb e.g. pollen or seed surface.

Grape like bunches of tiny air chambers are found at the end of each bronchiole. Each chamber contains several cup-shaped cavities called alveoli. The one cell thick wall are the respiratory surface. It is through these walls that oxygen and carbon exchange takes place between blood and air. There are only about 300 million alveoli in the lungs. That is a total surface area of 70m2.

A neurodegenerative disease that causes progressive memory loss and severe dementia in advanced cases. Alzheimer’s Disease is associated with certain abnormalities in brain tissue, involving a particular protein, beta-amyloid. The gene encoding amyloid has been located and cloned from chromosome 21.

The codon UAG, a nonsense codon.

A mutant allele coding for a tRNA whose anticodon is altered in such a way that the suppressor tRNA inserts an amino acid at an amber codon in translation suppressing (preventing) termination.

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