Genetic Manipulation

Question 1

What is a clone?

Answer 1

Genetically identical copies of

Question 2

Which type of reproduction produces clones?

Answer 2

Asexual reproduction

Question 3

What is the tissue culture?

Answer 3

Tissue sample scraped from the parent plant. Tissue sample will be placed in an agar growth medium containing nutrients and auxins. Tissue samples will grow into tiny plantlets. Plantlets will be planted in a compost to encourage growth. These plants will be called as cloned plants.

Question 4

How can a new plant grow from just a few sample of cells?

Answer 4

Plants have regions called as the meristems tissue. The cells in the meristems are stem cells so they’re able to differentiate into any type of cell,

Question 5

Why is cloning easier in the plant cell rather than animals?

Answer 5

Plants have stem cells in the meristem tissue. Plants don’t raise ethical issues

Question 6

Compare between taking cuttings from the original parent plant and tissue culture-

Answer 6

Tissue culture-
Needs to be done under strict lab conditions
Produces large quantities of cloned plants

Taking cuttings-
Can be easily done just by taking a cut from a stem or a leaf
Produces small quantities of cloned plants Taking

Question 7

Why would a cloned dog not have the same
personality as it’s parent?

Answer 7

Due to environmental factors or mutations

Question 8

Why is the egg cell used and not the sperm cell for embryo cloning?

Answer 8

The egg cell contains all of the nutrients needed for the growth and development of the embryo

Question 9

Why is the nucleus from the adult cell used and inserted into the egg cell?

Answer 9

Because the adult cell already contains 46 chromosomes, so there is no fusion of sperm needed.

Question 10

What is the process of adult cell cloning?

Answer 10

Extract the nucleus from an unfertilized egg cell. Insert the nucleus from the adult cell into the egg cell. Stimulate the egg cell with a shock which acts as a catalyst to create cell division by mitosis. Insert the embryos into the surrogates mother’s uterus. Offsprings that will be created will be clones from the adult cell.

Question 11

How are cells able to develop into a complete organism?

Answer 11

Cell differentiation

Question 12

What is genetic engineering?

Answer 12

Technique for modifying the genetic material of a cell to give a desired characteristic.

Question 13

What happens in genetic engineering?

Answer 13

Genes from chromosomes of humans or other organisms are extracted by using enzymes and transferred into the cells of other organism by using a plasmid

Question 14

When must genes be transferred into cells of other organisms?

Answer 14

At an early stage of development

Question 15

How can you transfer the gene from one organism to another?

Answer 15

Enzymes are used to isolate the required gene.
The gene is then inserted into a vector (bacterial plasmids, viruses) at an early stage of development so the body can pass on the genes to all other cells, and keep producing the protein.
The vector is then inserted into the required cells.
The organism will then show the desirable trait.

Question 16

Advantages and disadvantages of genetically modified plants-

Answer 16

Adv-
Plants will have desirable characteristics ( size, quality, will have special nutrients)
Resistant to diseases, herbicides, insects.
Increased yield, More food for less money

Dis-
Uncertain about the effects on the populations of wild flowers and insects. And the effects of eating these GM crops on human health.

Question 17

Some people are worried about using milk from genetically engineered cows to feed human babies, give one reason why-

Answer 17

We don’t know about the long term effects on the babies

Question 18

The bacterium with the plasmid containing
the insulin gene multiplies by cell division to
form a clone. Will all the bacteria produce
insulin? Explain your answer. (3)

Answer 18

Yes, because they all are produced from the same original cell by asexual reproduction so they will be genetically identical, so all the bacteria will be capable of producing insulin.