Chapter 15: Exam Style

Questions
Neil Dizon
1.
(a) Stem cells are undifferentiated dividing cells that can develop
into any type of cell.
(b) In order to prevent their bodies from rejecting them as foreign
objects.
(c) Since the genes for the proteins that are produced by heart
muscle cells were expressed, the injected stem cells developed and
specialised into cardiac muscle cells.
(d) The results should be treated with caution as this study only
included a very small sample size (14 heart disease sufferers).
Furthermore, a longitudinal study needs to be conducted in order to
investigate the long-term effects of injecting stem cells into the
damaged tissues of heart disease patients.
2.
(a) The process involved for plant tissue culture is mitosis.
(b) An advantage of this is that a large number of plants can be
grown from a single plant in a relatively quick manner, as compared
to having to gather seeds and planting them.
(c) The callus tissues are totipotent, and therefore able to develop
into any type of cell. Varying concentrations of the plant growth
regulators could trigger the expression of genes that code for
different proteins that are produced by either shoot or root cells.
3.
(a) Stem cells were used in this investigation since the majority of
cells in the human body are not totipotent, and therefore cannot
develop into different white blood cells that these children are
unable to produce. By injecting stem cells, these can develop and
specialise into white blood cells and therefore the childrens bodies
are more able to fight infections. Stem cells were isolated from the
childs own bone marrow so that once the stem cells are injected
back into their bodies, the stem cells will not form an immune
response due to being mistaken as a foreign object.

(b) Slight increase in number of functioning white blood cells until 4

months, after which there was a rapid increase in the number of
functioning white blood cells, reaching a maximum of 6000
WBC/mm of blood at 12 months after stem cell treatment. This rapid
increase is seen because the injected stem cells have developed
into functioning white blood cells.
4.
(a) Taximofen acts as an inhibitor and blocks the oestrogen from
binding with the oestrogen receptor. Since most oestrogen is unable
to bind with the receptor, most of the receptors do not change
shape making them unable to release the transcriptional factor
that stimulates transcription. Therefore, transcription happens in
minimum and there is less mRNA produced that can be translated
into polypeptides.
(b)
(i) siRNA molecules are small, double-stranded sections of
RNA that comes from large molecules of double-stranded RNA that
was broken up by enzymes.
(ii) One of the two strands of siRNA with unpaired bases
combine with an enzyme. The unpaired bases in the siRNA then pair
with complementary bases on mRNA strand. Finally, the mRNA is
now cut into smaller sections by an enzyme. Since the mRNA is
broken up into smaller sections, its genetic code is not able to be
translated into a polypeptide.