The Effect of Specifications Grading on Students' Learning and Attitudes in an Undergraduate-Level Cell Biology Course.

Specifications (specs) grading is a grading system in which mastery of specific educational outcomes is the basis for the final grade a student earns in the course. Implementation of the types of assessments used for specs grading has shown to be beneficial for student learning and motivation compared to traditional grading systems. We designed a specs grading strategy in an undergraduate Cell Biology course, creating 20 individual learning outcomes (LOs).

Stimulation of yeast telomerase activity by the ever shorter telomere 3 (Est3) subunit is dependent on direct interaction with the catalytic protein Est2.

Telomerase is a multisubunit enzyme that maintains genome stability through its role in telomere replication. Although the Est3 protein is long recognized as an essential telomerase component, how it associates with and functions in the telomerase complex has remained enigmatic. Here we provide the first evidence of a direct interaction between Saccharomyces cerevisiae Est3p and the catalytic protein subunit (Est2p) by demonstrating that recombinant Est3p binds the purified telomerase essential N-terminal (TEN) domain of Est2p in vitro.

Proteasome-dependent degradation of Est1p regulates the cell cycle-restricted assembly of telomerase in Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

Telomerase counteracts loss of terminal sequences incurred during DNA replication. In S. cerevisiae, telomerase contains an RNA template (TLC1), a reverse transcriptase (Est2p) and at least two regulatory proteins (Est1p and Est3p).