1. What is the difference between a prokaryote and a eukaryote cell?
2. Draw a eukaryote cell. Label and give the function of its main parts.
3. What is a somatic cell?
4. What is a sex cell called?
5. What is meant by ‘genome’?
6. What does it mean when we say that every organism’s DNA is homoplasmic?
7. What structures in DNA turn food molecules into ATP, the high-energy molecule that powers cells and in turn, powers every tissue in the body?
8. Why is DNA considered to be the body’s ‘genetic code’ or the ‘blueprint for life’?
9. What is a chromosome? During which process do chromosomes appear?
10. In somatic cells chromosomes occur in homologous pairs. One is the maternal chromosome and contains the DNA or genetic information from the mother, the other is the ___________chromosome and contains the DNA from the _________.
11. Within each chromosome, DNA molecules form a sequence or code that is a template for the production of a protein, or part of a protein. Each protein has a specific function, and collectively proteins determine all physical characteristics and govern the functions of all ________, ________ and organs in the body.
12. Each protein generating code is a gene. The complete set of genes is called the ________.
13. Where in a cell is its DNA?
14. “The genetic code, DNA, is universal.” Explain
15. On a separate page:
a. Draw a DNA molecule and label the parts
b. Draw and label a nucleotide.
16. How does a DNA molecule replicate itself? Describe and draw the process.
17. How do somatic cells replicate themselves? Describe (or draw) the process.
18. Which cells divide through meiosis? Describe (or draw) the process of meiosis.
19. What is the evolutionary significance of meiosis?
20. What can go wrong during meiosis?
21. Study Figure 3.14.
Which of Gregor Mendel’s laws does it demonstrate?
What does the Punnett Square demonstrate?
Understand figures a and b thoroughly enough to explain it to the class.
22. ‘Linkage’ is an exception to Mendel’s second law. How does linkage work?
23. Chromosomes come in pairs. All normal human somatic cells have 22 pairs of autosomes and one pair of sex chromosomes. How many pairs are there in all?
24. To function normally each human cell has to have both members of each chromosome pair, with a total of how many chromosomes?
25. What can happen if a fetus doesn’t have the correct number of chromosomes?
26. Offspring inherit one member of each chromosomal pair from the father and one from the _______.
27. Are partner chromosomes genetically identical? Explain
28. What is a karyotype?
29. Does the genetic information carried by chromosome partners govern the same or different traits?
30. How many pairs of chromosomes are there in a somatic cell (diploid)?
31. How many chromosomes are there in a gamete (sex cell) (haploid)?
32. What is the female’s gamete called? What is the father’s gamete called?
33. Every female gamete has an x chromosome. Where does the zygote get the second pair of that chromosome? What two possible chromosomes can it get?
34. What would happen if the sex cell was diploid?
35. Two gametes come together to make a __________.
36. How do regulatory genes differ from structural genes?
37. Along every chromosome, specific genes have specific physical locations, called a ______________.
38. Alleles, the subunits of a gene, are different chemical structures at the same locus – chemically alternative versions of the same gene.
39. The two alleles at any one genetic locus can be chemically identical, or chemically different. They identify the genotype. What is meant by genotype?
40. Mendel’s 1st Law, the Law of Segregation says that mother and father contribute equally to an offspring’s genetic makeup. For each gene the offspring have one allele from the mother and one from the father. These 2 alleles can be chemically the same – homozygous – or chemically different – ___________.
41. How many daughter cells – gametes – does meiosis produce?
42. Each of the daughter cells produced by meiosis has only one set of chromosomes, not pairs. Is it haploid or diploid?
43. Every gamete, having this one set, can pass on only one allele for each gene. Say the gamete that the father contributes has the allele for brown hair (dominant), and the allele from the mother is for red (recessive), what color hair will the offspring have? Make a Punnett Square to figure this out.
44. Look at Figure 3.21 on page 64. Why are all the first generation flowers red? Why does the white color reappear in the second generation?
45. When alleles are heterozygous, the dominant one will be expressed in the ___________.
The recessive gene will not be expressed. The phenotype is the visible manifestation of the gene.
People who have the genotype AA or AO have the same phenotype. What is the phenotype?
46. Sharon’s blood type is A. Do you know what her genotype is? What two genotypes could she have?
47. What has to be the case for a recessive allele to be expressed?
48. What is meant by two alleles being codominant? Which allele is expressed if two alleles are codominant? If someone has type AB blood what is that person’s phenotype and genotype.
49. Genetics is complex, genes don’t match simply to traits. Some genes are polygenic.
What is meant by polygenic? What is pleiotropy?
50. In humans, thousands of complex phenotypes, such as birth weight, height, skin color, head form, tooth size and eye shape, have multiple genetic components and are influenced by what other kind of factors?
51. Environmental factors that affect a mother can also affect her developing fetus. If the fetus is female, the developing ova may also be affected so that environmental factors operating at a fixed point in time can affect the health and well-being of subsequent generations.
52. What is a simple definition of epigenetics?
53. From conception, ‘epigenetic’ mechanisms within cells may be activated by a variety of behavioral and environmental factors. What are some of these?
