Uses and Limitations of Model Systems

Question 1

are a representative sample of extant diversity and what we learn from a few of them can be extrapolated to many other organism

Answer 1

model organisms (model systems?)

Question 2

Criteria for a model biological system (6)

Answer 2

• The organism used should be easy to maintain
• Its operation size should be convenient.
• Should be inexpensive to maintain
• The model organism used should have short life cycle.
• The organism used can be genetically manipulated.
• It should be potential to deliver economically important results.

Question 3

T or F

it is likely that the most basic mechanisms of development are similar in all animals and are derived from the earliest animal ancestors

Answer 3

True

Question 4

Model Systems

Answer 4

A. Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans)
B. Drosophila
C. Xenopus
D. Zebrafish
E. Arabidopsis thaliana

Question 5

____________ is a small, bacteriovorous nematode (or roundworm)first described by _________ in 1900

Answer 5

Caenorhabditis elegans
Emile Maupas

Question 6

_________ in Cambridge, United Kingdom, selected C. elegans for his new programme in genetic research that it became a global phenomenon and attracted a remarkable team of geneticists to join him. They won three Nobel prizes for discoveries made using his new model organism.

Answer 6

Sydney Brenner

Question 7

• a tiny round worm that lives in decaying organic matter where it eats bacteria, and is less than 1mm long as an adult
• has fewer than 1,000 cells, it may be possible to genetically screen for regulators of each cell and define all of the neural connections that allowed this organism’s development and behavior

Answer 7

Caenorhabditis elegans

Question 8

The first documented use of Drosophila melanogaster in the laboratory was by __________ at Harvard in 1901, although the “father” of Drosophila research is undoubtedly ____________

Answer 8

Willian Castle’s group
Thomas Hunt Morgan

Question 9

________ greatly refined the theory of inheritance first proposed by Gregor Mendel, by using Drosophila to define genes and establish that they were found within the chromosomes (long before it was even established that DNA is the genetic material. He won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicinein1993 “for his discoveries concerning the roles played by the chromosomes in heredity”

Answer 9

Morgan

Question 10

In drosophila, ____________ is the smallest chromosome and is also called the __________

Answer 10

Chromosome 4 or dot chromosome