A. Factual knowledge

1. Please describe, briefly, two new, distinct pieces of factual knowledge that you acquired or developed since the last learning journal

Parthenogenic embryos do not often survive implantation because of dysregulation of X inactivation.

At the 4 cell stage embryos express paternal Xist, leading to inactivation of the paternal X chromosome.

B. Conceptual knowledge

1. Since connections and models make for conceptual knowledge… please describe any connections (direct or indirect) that you can see between the two pieces of knowledge described in A.

The dysregulation of X inactivation in the parthenogenic embryos is partially due to not having a paternal chromosome. Both maternal Xs have similar histone modifications at Xist so it is more difficult to successfully inactivate one by implantation.

C. Metacognitive knowledge (no skills this time!)

If you are like most students in the class, you probably spent a significant amount of time reading, studying, and dissecting the article assigned for MT2.

1. Please describe, briefly, the strategy that you employed to complete the task.

I read the paper carefully and then discussed all of the figures and the main points with classmates. I also took notes while I was reading the paper by myself and wrote down any points that did not make sense to me so I could bring it up to my classmates.

2. Thinking about your experience with reading and dissecting this article, what was the hardest part?

The hardest part was connecting the authors’ conclusions to the results that they were presenting. Often there seemed to be jumps in logic that were not explained at all that I then had to talk through and figure out step by step.

3. Thinking about your experience with reading and dissecting this article this article, what did you feel most comfortable with/confident about? Why do you think that is?

I think that I was most comfortable with the overall take-home message of the paper. Some of the smaller experiments and details were very confusing but I could see how they came to their overall conclusions.