Test 1 (Chapters 1&2) Flashcards
1) What is the name of the company or institution that has access to the health, genealogical, and genetic information of approximately 270,000 residents of Iceland? A) National Institutes of Health B) deCODE C) Gattaca D) Biogen E) American Cancer Society
B) deCODE
2) A biotechnology company, deCODE, is in the process of creating a database that contains ________.
A) the gene sequences of all newborns in the United States beginning in 2006
B) a compilation of all the known genes in humans throughout the free world
C) health, genealogical, and genetic information of approximately 270,000 residents of Iceland
D) a complete sequence of the human genome
E) all the information available on the human genome proj
C) health, genealogical, and genetic information of approximately 270,000 residents of Iceland
3) Why did deCODE select Iceland for its ambitious research project?
A) a relatively low degree of genetic diversity
B) frequent and extensive mutational bursts
C) high genetic diversity
D) lack of genealogical information
E) virtual absence of mutation
A) a relatively low degree of genetic diversity
4) Many species have two representatives of each chromosome. In such species, the characteristic number of chromosomes is called the ________ number. It is usually symbolized as ________.
A) haploid; n
B) haploid; 2n
C) diploid; 2n
D) diploid; n
E) None of the answers listed is correct.
C) diploid; 2n
5) Genetics is the study of \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_. A) heredity and variation B) mutation and recession C) transcription and translation D) diploid and haploid E) replication and recombination
A) heredity and variation
6) The genetic material DNA consists of basic subunits called ________.
A) mitochondria
B) lysosomes
C) centrioles
D) nucleotides
E) None of the answers listed is correct.
D) nucleotides
7) The immediate product of transcription is \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_. A) a phospholipid B) an amino acid C) a protein D) a carbohydrate E) RNA
E) RNA
8) Genetics is commonly grouped into several general areas: transmission, molecular, and population/evolution. Which biological processes are studied in transmission genetics?
Answer: Mendelian inheritance (segregation and independent assortment), modification of Mendelian patterns.
9) Which theory postulates that an organism is derived from materials originally present in the egg that eventually differentiate into adult structures during development?
Answer: epigenesis
10) What is meant by the term gene?
Answer: a unit of inheritance
11) What term refers to the similarity between parents and offspring, and what term refers to the lack of similarity between parents and offspring?
Answer: Heredity and Variation
12) Early in the twentieth century, Walter Sutton and Theodor Boveri noted that the behavior of chromosomes during meiosis is identical to the behavior of genes during gamete formation. They proposed that genes are carried on chromosomes, which led to the basis of the ________.
Answer: Chromosome Theory of Inheritance
13) What is a mutation?
Answer: A mutation is an inherited change in a gene.
14) What is a simple definition of an allele?
Answer: An allele is a variant form of a gene.
15) Until the mid-1940s, many scientists considered proteins to be the likely candidates for the genetic material. Why?
Answer: Proteins are the most abundant, universally distributed components in cells. Because of their great structural and functional diversity, they were considered likely candidates.
16) Name the individual who, while working with the garden pea in the mid-1850s, demonstrated quantitative patterns of heredity and developed a theory involving the behavior of hereditary factors.
Answer: Gregor Mendel
17) What does the term genetics mean?
Answer: study of heredity and variation
molecular, cellular, developmental, organismal, and populational levels.
18) Name the substance that serves as the hereditary material in eukaryotes and prokaryotes.
Answer: DNA
19) Name two individuals who provided the conceptual basis for our present understanding that genes are on chromosomes.
Answer: Walter Sutton and Theodor Boveri
20) What term is used to describe the fact that different genes in an organism often provide differences in observable features?
Answer: phenotype
21) Name one of the botanists who, in 1900, rediscovered the work of Gregor Mendel.
Answer: Karl Correns, Hugo de Vries, or Erich Tschermak
22) Alternative forms of a gene are called ________.
Answer: alleles
23) The various characteristics of organisms that result from their genetic makeup are collectively referred to as an organism’s ________.
Answer: phenotype
24) A fundamental property of DNA’s nitrogenous bases that is necessary for the double-stranded nature of its structure is ________.
Answer: complementation
25) In nonviral systems, what is the nature of the hereditary substance?
Answer: a double helix.
26) Name the bases in DNA and their pairing specificities.
Answer: adenine:thymine, guanine:cytosine
27) What is meant by the term genetic code?
Answer: The genetic code consists of a linear series of three adjacent nucleotides present in mRNA molecules.
28) Compare and contrast nonenzymatic and enzymatic proteins.
Answer: Both are gene products with their primary structure being a string of amino acids. Enzymes are required as catalysts for most biochemical reactions; nonenzymatic proteins include structural (collagen), protective (immunoglobins), and/or transport (hemoglobin) proteins.
9) List the two relatively complex processes in which genetic information is converted into functional products.
Answer: transcription and translation
30) What is meant by the phrase the central dogma of molecular genetics?
Answer: functional and structural relationships among DNA, RNA, and protein
31) What is the composition of the genetic material?
Answer: polymers of nucleotides making up DNA
32) What is meant by complementation in terms of the structure of DNA?
Answer: base pairing of A with T, and G with C
