Authors of original unit: Ryan D. Zaremba

Partner Projects: Biology Student Workbench

Grade Level: High school chemistry teachers

Subject Areas: SARS

The unit overview the sequences of the proteins within the virus that cause SARS. You will use the basic tools of the Biology Workbench to view the sequences of the protein, find similar "mutated" SARS viruses, and see where the differences between the two exist. Next, you will use Protein Explorer to view a SARS protein in 3-dimensions. Also, with this particular program, you will be able to specifically view the active site (the spot on the protein that causes the illness) of the protein.

Intended for high school chemistry teachers, who wish to use computational tools in the classroom. Also suitable for introductory college chemistry. It could also be used directly by students for self-study.

Web browser (preferably Firefox) that is Javascript-enabled. To find out which plugins are already installed on your mozilla/firefox browser, just type 'about:plugins' in address box. You can download each plug-in component from the links provided and you can test if your system support Javascript from here.

Introduction: Background information on SARS.

Part 1: Opening An Account and Starting a new Session

Part 2: Importing Sequences from Protein Sequence Databases

Part 3: Finding another similar strain of SARS: Using BLASTP

Part 4: Aligning the Sequences: Using CLUSTALW

Part 5: Using Protein Explorer to Visualize the Mpro Protein