Exam 1: Introduction to the Study of Cell and Molecular Biology

What are embryonic stem (ES)cells? How do ES cells differ from adult stem cells?

What feature of iPS cells removes all the ethical reservations that accompany work with ES cells and makes it much easier to generate iPS cells in the lab? What difficulties must be overcome before iPS cells can be used as a source of cells for human therapy? How might the problem of immune rejection of iPS cell replacements eventually be avoided?

Which of the following is not a model organism?

How might ES cells be "customized" so that they possess the same genetic makeup as the individual who is being treated,thus protecting them from attack by the recipient's immune system? What is the major ethical question associated with this procedure? What practical impediments presently stand in the way of this procedure and how might they be removed?

What is transdifferentiation?

The rapidity and cost-efficiency of DNA sequencing has made it possible to sequence virtually all of the genes present in the microbes of a given habitat.This generates a collective genome for that habitat,which has come to be called a(n)_________.

You are observing a cell.Its cell wall is made of a long-chain polysaccharide called peptidoglycan.It has the ability to make all but the simplest molecules and can make all of the 20 amino acids.What kind of cell is it? If the cell contained pigments capable of photosynthesis,what would it be called?

What is the primary risk of using human ES cells in cell replacement therapy to treat diseases like type I diabetes and macular degeneration? Why is this a risk?

You study two populations of mice,a lean population and an obese population.You measure the calories released from digested food by the microorganisms in the microbiomes isolated from the digestive tracts of the two mouse populations.One of the microbiomes releases significantly more calories than the other.Which microbiome would be likely to release significantly more calories? What significance might this have for human health?

Who was the first person to describe living single cells?

Which cells in the pancreas produce the enzymes responsible for digestion of food in the intestine? What do pancreatic beta cells do? What treatment was used to cause the reprogramming of pancreatic acinar cells into pancreatic beta cells? How did the researchers know that the transdifferentiation had,in fact,occurred and resulted in the production of more pancreatic beta cells? Why is the use of adenoviruses to deliver the genes in this experiment less of a risk in humans than using some other viruses would be?

What are glial cells?

Why are radiation and toxic chemicals ideal for destroying a recipient's blood cells?

Among the most complex viruses are the ________,which are also the most abundant biological entities on Earth.

Cyanobacteria are obviously capable of photosynthesis,but many of them also convert nitrogen gas into reduced forms of nitrogen (such as ammonia)that can be used by cells in the synthesis of nitrogen-containing organic compounds,including amino acids and nucleotides.This process is called ______.

Potato spindle-tuber disease,which causes potatoes to become gnarled and cracked,is caused by an infectious agent consisting of a small circular RNA molecule that totally lacks a protein coat.These infectious agents are thought to exert their effects by interfering with the cell's normal path of gene expression.Such an infectious agent is known as a(n)__________.

Techniques for sequencing DNA have become very rapid and cost-efficient.Consequently,researchers have begun to sequence all of the genes of all of the microbes present in a given habitat.What term has been coined to describe such a collective genome? What information does such a collective genome provide? What is an example of a microbiome?

What factors presently limit the scope of organ transplantation as a treatment for human disease?

What is the normal purpose of hematopoietic stem cells in the bone marrow?

Which of the following are considered to be eukaryotes?