Bio practical

Question 1

Denaturing step

Answer 1

double-stranded DNA is heated to separate it into single strands

Question 2

Annealing step

Answer 2

The temperature is lowered to allow the DNA primers to attach to the template DNA

Question 3

Extending step

Answer 3

The temperature is raised again to allow the Taq polymerase enzyme to make a new strand of DNA

Question 4

polymerase chain reaction (PCR) Steps

Answer 4

1. Denaturing
2. Annealing
3. Extending

Question 5

which tissues mitosis primarily occurs in humans?

Answer 5

somatic tissues

Question 6

which tissues mitosis primarily occurs in plants?

Answer 6

meristematic tissues

Question 7

duplicated

Answer 7

a chromosome that has an extra copy of a DNA segment

Question 8

unduplicated

Answer 8

a single, individual chromosome that has not yet undergone DNA replication

Question 9

diploid

Answer 9

two complete sets of chromosomes, one from each parent

Question 10

Haploid

Answer 10

having a single set of unpaired chromosomes.

Question 11

calculate the length of time that mitosis occurs within a cell cycle

Answer 11

= # of cells in a certain phase / # of cells counted all together

Question 12

which organs or tissues meiosis occurs in animals and plants to produce gametes?

Answer 12

the gonads (specifically the testes in males and ovaries in females)

Question 13

Meiosis I

Answer 13

effectively reducing the chromosome number by half

Question 14

Meiosis II

Answer 14

separate sister chromatids

Question 15

Taq DNA Polymerase

Answer 15

heat-resistant DNA polymerase enzyme that’s used to amplify DNA sequences

Question 16

DNA primers

Answer 16

short, single-stranded nucleic acid sequences that are used to initiate DNA synthesis

Question 17

deoxynucleotides

Answer 17

building blocks to create new DNA strands
and are made up of three parts:
A deoxyribose sugar, A nitrogenous base, A phosphoryl group

Question 18

thermal cycler

Answer 18

heats and cools a DNA sample in order to perform the PCR

Question 19

How is qPCR different from standard PCR where PCR products are visualized on a gel?

Answer 19

Amplification process is the same as PCR except that the reaction includes a fluorescent dye that bind to double-stranded DNA

Question 20

What is the Ct (cycle threshold) value?

Answer 20

refers to the number of cycles needed to replicate enough DNA/RNA to be detected (crosses a threshold line)

Question 21

What is the purpose for performing RT-qPCR
(Reverse Transcriptase-qPCR)?

Answer 21

to detect and quantify RNA, and turn it into cDNA

Question 22

Interpret what the R2 value and P-value of the standard curve means

Answer 22

R2 - indicating how well the linear relationship between concentration and signal fits the data
P-value - tells you how statistically significant that relationship is

Question 23

Why is agarose used in gel electrophoresis?

Answer 23

allows for the separation of the DNA fragments during electrophoresis

Question 24

What is agarose?

Answer 24

natural seaweed polysaccharide

Question 25

how DNA fragments are separated by agarose gel electrophoresis

Answer 25

based on their size due to their negative charge

Question 26

What are the advantages or disadvantages of Methylene Blue for staining DNA in a gel?

Answer 26

Can be seen in normal light but has low sensitivity

Question 27

What are the advantages or disadvantages of Ethidium Bromide for staining DNA in a gel?

Answer 27

which is highly sensitive but considered a mutagen, but is high in toxicity

Question 28

What are the advantages or disadvantages of SYBR Green for staining DNA in a gel?

Answer 28

provides high sensitivity similar to Ethidium Bromide while being less toxic, but typically requires a specialized blue light source for visualization and can be more expensive

Question 29

How is micropipetting different between loading a sample into gel as compared to micropipetting a sample into a dry tube?

Answer 29

Never use second stop with the gel

Question 30

How is BLAST used to compare and identify sequences?

Answer 30

compares nucleotide or protein sequences to sequence databases and calculates the statistical significance of matches

Question 31

What does a MAX SCORE tell you?

Answer 31

the best possible match found within the aligned region

Question 32

What does an E-value tell you?

Answer 32

the number of times you would expect to find a match with a similar score or better by chance

Question 33

What does % IDENTITY tell you?

Answer 33

the percentage of nucleotides or amino acids that are exactly the same between your query sequence and the sequence it’s being compared to in the database

Question 34

What is the ACCESSION NUMBER?

Answer 34

a unique identifier for a sequence record in a database

Question 35

MUSCLE. What is it used for?

Answer 35

Aligines sequences

Question 36

PHYLIP. What is it used for?

Answer 36

Creates cladogram graph

Question 37

What does this phylogenetic tree (using the LDH gene) tell you about the relationship between these animals?

Answer 37

the closest evolutionary relationship is between the mouse and rat, followed by a grouping of the human, chimpanzee, and gorilla

Question 38

describe how PCR amplifies specific regions of a template DNA

Answer 38

Using primers that bind to DNA that then allow DNA polymerase to create more copies of DNA strand (denaturing, annealing, and extending )

Question 39

taxonomy

Answer 39

the science of classifying, describing, and naming organisms

Question 40

systematics

Answer 40

looks at the evolutionary relationships between organisms

Question 41

Clade

Answer 41

group evolved from a common ancestor.

Question 42

phylogenetic tree

Answer 42

illustrates ancestral relationships among organisms

Question 43

Bioinformatics

Answer 43

Using computers to analyze, store, and interpret biological data

Question 44

What kind of information can you obtain from BLAST?

Answer 44

finds regions of local similarity between sequences