Suppose that you would like to make a human protein in bacteria. You clone a fra

Question

Suppose that you would like to make a human protein in bacteria. You clone a fragment of genomic DNA that contains the human gene into a plasmid, transform the plasmid into the bacteria, and isolate colonies containing the recombinant plasmid. Which of the following results would you expect from this experiment? Select all that apply:

1.the bacteria could produce a truncated, nonfunctional human protein

2.the bacteria could produce no human protein

3.the bacteria could produce a much longer protein with an incorrect amino acid sequence

4.the bacteria could produce a normal, functioning human protein

Explanation / Answer

The bacteria that are transformed with human genomic DNA could produce a much longer protein with an incorrect amino acid sequence. This is because human genomic DNA contains both exons and introns, while bacteria do not contain exons. Thus, introns are not removed in bacteria. Generally, in eukaryotes, the introns are removed by a process called splicing. So, these bacteria would produce longer protein, which is unusable. Sometimes, the bacteria may not able to recognize the human gene to produce the protein. Thus, bacteria could produce truncated, nonfunctional human protein.

In eukaryotes, the proteins undergo post-translational modifications such as glycosylation, phosphorylation etc. that is not possible in prokaryotes. In addition, the proteins produced by prokaryotes are inactive in condition due to lack of proteolytic cleavage. For example, insulin contains inactive peptide sequence, which is removed in eukaryotes.

Hence, the correct options are (1) and (3) the bacteria could produce a truncated, non-functional human protein and the bacteria could produce a much longer protein with an incorrect amino acid sequence

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