Chapter 16 | DNA, RNA and Proteins
- Explain Griffith’s transformation experiments. What did he conclude from them?
- Why were radioactive sulfur and phosphorous used to label bacteriophage in Hershey and Chase’s experiments?
- Provide a brief summary of the Sanger sequencing method.
- Describe the structure and complementary base pairing of DNA.
- How did the scientific community learn that DNA replication takes place in a semi-conservative fashion?
- DNA replication is bidirectional and discontinuous; explain your understanding of those concepts.
- What are Okazaki fragments and how they are formed?
- If the rate of replication in a particular prokaryote is 900 nucleotides per second, how long would it take 1.2 million base pair genomes to make two copies?
- Explain the events taking place at the replication fork. If the gene for helicase is mutated, what part of replication will be affected?
- What is the role of a primer in DNA replication? What would happen if you forgot to add a primer in a tube containing the reaction mix for a DNA sequencing reaction?
- How do the linear chromosomes in eukaryotes ensure that its ends are replicated completely?
- What is the consequence of mutation of a mismatch repair enzyme? How will this affect the function of a gene?
- Imagine if there were 200 commonly occurring amino acids instead of 20. Given what you know about the genetic code, what would be the shortest possible codon length? Explain.
- Discuss how degeneracy of the genetic code makes cells more robust to mutations.
- Transcribe and translate the following DNA sequence (nontemplate strand): 5′-ATGGCCGGTTATTAAGCA-3′
- Explain how single nucleotide changes can have vastly different effects on protein function.
