This activity is intended to test out wireless laptop technology for possible more extensive use in this class this year and in the future. It also will serve as an introduction to the final group project that will be assigned after Thanksgiving. My hope is that by the end of this period every one will have completed their part of the assignment and that students who finish early will help their group mates learn how to access and manipulate data from various web-site. If you do not finish the assignment during the class or do not feel comfortable with the Internet resources, please spend some time on these issues on your own.

1. Pick one of the following amino acid biosynthetic pathways and write it prominently on your blackboard so that other groups don’t choose the same one you selected:
 

3. As a group, choose one organism that has the pathway of interest.

4. Each person in the group select a different enzyme in the pathway you have chosen and find the amino acid sequence for your enzyme and the nucleotide sequence of the gene that encodes it in the chosen organism.

5. Generate a table of amino acid composition for your enzyme and a corresponding codon utilization table for its gene.