Chapter 19, Problem 3
After finding a gene that causes a disease, researchers often introduce the defective allele into mice to create an animal model of the disease. Why are these models valuable? a. They allow the testing of potential drug therapies without endangering human patients. b. They allow the sequencing of the mutant allele. c. They allow the production of large quantities of the defective gene product, usually a protein. d. They allow the study of how the gene was transmitted from parents to offspring.
Video transcript
Describe why biologists often generate genetically modified organisms (GMOs) for research purposes.
Explain what qualifies the gene therapy method to cure sickle cell disease as an ex vivo approach.
A friend who works in a research lab performed a GWAS and discovered a tight association between a SNP allele and the disease she is studying. She concluded that the SNP allele must be the mutation that causes the disease. Explain why she is likely to be wrong.
Revolutionaries executed Nicholas II, the last czar of Russia, along with his wife and five children, the family physician, and about a dozen servants. Many decades later, a grave said to hold the remains of the royal family was discovered. Biologists were asked to analyze DNA from the bodies. If the remains of the family were in this grave, predict how similar the DNA fingerprints would be between the parents, the children, and the unrelated individuals in the grave.
Potato blight causes potato plants to shrivel and rot. The disease is caused by the pathogen Phytophthora infestans, infamous for its role in Ireland's Great Potato Famine in the mid-1840s. The disease can devastate crops during wet weather, sometimes leading to total crop loss. Researchers aim to use recombinant DNA methods to transfer blight resistance genes from resistant varieties into susceptible varieties of potato. Explain how restriction endonucleases and DNA ligase could be used to insert a potato blight resistance gene into a plasmid.