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Help Very often an organism\'s traits are caused by a combination of its genes a

ID: 213651 • Letter: H

Question

Help Very often an organism's traits are caused by a combination of its genes and its environment. Think about the green color you saw in the genetically transformed bacteria: What two factors must be present in the bacteria's environment for you to see the green color? (HINT: One factor is the plate and the other factor is in how you look at the bacteria) a. What do you think each of the two environmental factors you listed above are doing to cause the genetically transformed bacteria to turn green? b. c. What advantage would there be for an organism to be able to turn on or off particular genes in response to certain conditions?

Explanation / Answer

Answer:

(a) One factor within the plate that must be present in the bacteria’s environment for one to observe the expression of the GFP gene is the sugar arabinose in the agarose plate. Another factor that must be present in the bacteria’s environment includes the UV light, allowing the GFP protein within the bacteria to emit a fluorescent glow.

(b) The sugar arabinose turns on the expression of the green fluorescent protein by binding to a regulatory protein that is sitting on the promoter region. When arabinose is present it binds to regulatory protein, therefore changing its shape, facilitating the transcription of the gene by RNA Polymerase.

(c) The advantage for an organism to be able to turn on or off particular genes in response to certain conditions would allow the gene to adapt in different conditions and would be able to prevent overproducing of unnecessary proteins.