Becker's World of the Cell 9th Edition by Lewis Kleinsmith, Jeff Hardin, Gregory Paul Bertoni

Exercise 9

"Outfoxing" FoxP2. The FoxP2 gene encodes a regulatory transcription factor implicated in vocalization in mammals and speech in humans. For each of the following scenarios, explain what experiment (s)you would perform to obtain the relevant information.
(a)Most human tissues produce a FoxP2 transcript of 6.5 kb.
(b)DNA recovered from well-preserved fossils of Neanderthals and Denisovans, extinct members of the genus Homo, has the same amino acid sequence as modern Homo sapiens.
(c)FoxP2 RNA is expressed in specific neurons in the cerebral hemispheres of the mouse brain.
(d)Mice make ultrasonic vocalizations (squeaks)when they are under stress. Assuming you had a way to monitor ultrasonic squeaks, design an experiment that would test whether FoxP2 is necessary for stress-induced ultrasonic vocalization in mice. Assume that mice can survive sufficiently well without FoxP2 function in a laboratory setting to perform your experiments.
(e)Human patients carrying a mutation in the FoxP2 gene show severe speech and language deficiencies. When the genomic DNA from exon 4 of FoxP2 of such patients is cut with the enzymes Eco RI, Eco RV, Avr II and Hin dIII, the resulting fragments differ in size from those produced from FoxP2 of normal humans.