Course: Genetic Engineering

Minor Project
1. In chickens, the white plumage of the leghorn breed is dominant over colored plumage,
feathered shanks are dominant over clean shanks, and pea comb is dominant over single comb.
Each of the gene pairs segregates independently. If a homozygous white, feathered, pea-
combed chicken is crossed with a homozygous colored, clean, single-combed chicken and the F1
are allowed to interbreed, what proportion of the birds in the F2 will produce only white,
feathered, pea-combed progeny if mated to colored, clean-shanked, single-combed birds?
2. In jimsonweed, purple flowers are dominant to white. Self-fertilization of a particular, purple-
flowered jimsonweed produces 28 purple-flowered and 10 white flowered progeny. What
proportion of the purple flowered progeny will breed true?
3. A piece of DNA that is 5,000 bp long is digested with restriction enzymes A and B, singly and
together. The DNA fragments produced are separated by DNA electrophoresis and their sizes
are calculated, with the following results:

Each A fragment is extracted from the gel and digested with enzyme B, and each B fragment is
extracted from the gel and digested with enzyme A. The sizes of the resulting DNA fragments
are determined by gel electrophoresis, with the following results:

4. Suppose you wanted to produce human insulin (a peptide hormone) by cloning. Assume that
you could do this by inserting the human insulin gene into a bacterial host where, given the
appropriate conditions, the human gene would be transcribed and then translated into human
insulin. Which would be better to use as your source of the gene: human genomic insulin DNA
or a cDNA copy of this gene? Explain your choice.
5. Chromosome I in maize has the gene sequence ABCDEF, whereas chromosome II has the
sequence MNOPQR. A reciprocal translocation resulted in ABCPQR and MNODEF. Diagram the
expected pachytene configuration in the F1 of a cross of homozygotes of these two
arrangements.