Exam 16: The Molecular Basis of Inheritance

In a healthy eukaryotic cell, the rate of DNA repair is typically equal to the rate of DNA mutation. When the rate of repair lags behind the rate of mutation, what is a possible fate of the cell?

What is the basis for the difference in how the leading and lagging strands of DNA molecules are synthesised?

Referring to the figure, what bases will be added to the primer as DNA replication proceeds?

Telomere shortening puts a limit on the number of times a cell can divide. Research has shown that telomerase can extend the life span of cultured human cells. How might adding telomerase affect cellular ageing?

Which of the following structural characteristics is most critical for the association between histones and DNA?

Which of the following investigators was (were) responsible for the discovery that in DNA from any species, the amount of adenine equals the amount of thymine, and the amount of guanine equals the amount of cytosine?

How does the enzyme telomerase meet the challenge of replicating the ends of linear chromosomes?

In analysing the number of different bases in a DNA sample, which result would be consistent with the base-pairing rules?

E. coli cells grown on 15N medium are transferred to 14N medium and allowed to grow for two more generations (two rounds of DNA replication). DNA extracted from these cells is centrifuged. What density distribution of DNA would you expect in this experiment?

In E. coli, to repair a thymine dimer by nucleotide excision repair, in which order do the necessary enzymes act?

Which of the following lists represents the order of increasingly higher levels of organisation of chromatin?

Semiconservative replication involves a template. What is the template?

Which of the following statements accurately describes one characteristic of histones?

Which of the following statements accurately describes the structure of a eukaryotic chromosome?

Which of the following characteristics would you expect of a eukaryotic organism that lacks the enzyme telomerase?

Which of the following statements accurately describes the differences between DNA replication in prokaryotes and DNA replication in eukaryotes?

What is the role of DNA ligase in the elongation of the lagging strand during DNA replication?

Which of the following types of cells are affected most by telomere shortening?

In a nucleosome, the DNA is wrapped around

What are 'telomeres'?