If anyone could help I would really appreciate it.. Than you in advance. You are

Question

If anyone could help I would really appreciate it.. Than you in advance.

You are working on a set of experiments in which you have demonstrated using Western blot that a protein is highly expressed in a particular cell line using an antibody that recognizes amino sequences encoded by exon 3 of a five-exon gene. To assess the mRNA, you design reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (PCR)
primers to exons 2 and 4 that flank exon 3, yet despite all your efforts you never detect an mRNA. Obviously it is expressed as the protein is detectable. Using other cell lines you readily detect an mRNA so your “positive
controls” are working and your experimental procedure is sound.
Knowing what you now know about the central dogma and gene structure, why might you not be able to identify the mRNA encoding this protein?

Explanation / Answer

The reason why we are not able to identify the mRNA encoding this protein is due to alternatve gene splicing. A single gene can give different proteins. The amino acid sequence gained from the western blot test might be seen in only one of the proteins.

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