CHAPTER 11.

BIOTECHNOLOGY-PRINCIPLES AND PROCESSES

1. Assertion: A bacterial cell with no restriction enzymes will be easily infected and lysed by
bacteriophages.
Reason: Restriction enzymes catalyse synthesis of protective coat around bacterial cell that prevents
bacteriophage attack.
2. Assertion: Foreign DNA and vector DNA are cut with the help of ligase.
Reason: Ligase does not act on sugar phosphate backbone of DNA.
3. Assertion: Ethidium bromide (EtBr) under UV radiation gives bright orange coloured bands.
Reason: The separated DNA fragments can be seen after staining the DNA with compound EtBr.
4. Assertion: Agrobacterium tumefaciens is popular in genetic engineering because this bacterium is
associated with roots of all cereals and pulse crops.
Reason: A gene incorporated in the bacterial chromosomal genome gets automatically transferred to
the crop with which the bacterium is associated.
5. Assertion: Restriction enzymes Hin and Hpa are produced from two different genera of bacteria.
Reason: Hin is produced from Haemophilus while Hpa is produced from Hematococcus.
6. Assertion: Electroporation uses electric pulses for making competent host.
Reason: The electrical pulses induce transient pores in the plasmalemma through which DNA
molecules are incorporated.
7. Assertion: In gel electrophoresis, DNA fragments are separated.
Reason: DNA is negatively charged, so it moves towards anode under electric field.
8. Assertion: Restriction enzymes recognise palindromic sequences.
Reason: Palindromic sequences read same in both directions of the two strands.
9. Assertion: Restriction endonucleases are also called ‘molecular scissors’.
Reason: When fragments generated by restriction endonucleases are mixed, there due to their sticky
ends.
10. Assertion: Origin of replication is an essential part of a vector.
Reason: Ori is responsible for initiating replication.
11. Assertion: Use of chitinase enzyme is necessary for isolation of DNA from yeast cells but not in
case of Spirogyra.
Reason: Fungal cell wall is made up of fungal cellulose or chitin.
12. Assertion: In recombinant DNA technology, human genes are often transferred into bacteria
(prokaryotes) or yeast (eukaryote).
Reason: Both bacteria and yeast multiply very fast to form huge population, which express the
desired gene.
13. Assertion: PCR primers must not have self-complementary regions.
Reason: Self complementary regions result in hairpin structures adversely affecting the PCR.
14. Assertion: Insertion of DNA within the coding sequence of β-galactosidase results in colourless
colonies.
Reason: Presence of insert results in inactivation of enzyme β-galactosidase known as insertional
inactivation.
15. Assertion: Downstream processing is generally considered more difficult and costlier in plants
than that in microbes.
Reason: Rhizosecretion is used as a method to facilitate easier recovery of recombinant proteins from
plants.
Answer: 1. (c), 2. (d), 3. (a), 4. (d), 5. (d), 6. (a), 7. (a), 8. (b), 9. (b), 10. (a), 11. (a), 12. (a), 13. (a), 14. (a),
15. (b).