NAME: DATE: AP BIOLOGY: U06L09

Gel Electrophoresis

Do Now: HW Notes 19 Check

1. **What is the purpose of gel electrophoresis?

2. *How does gel electrophoresis work?

3. What types of molecules can undergo gel electrophoresis?

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Open Notes Quiz:
1. DNA has…
a. A positive charge because of the presence of sugar molecules.
b. A negative charge because of the presence of phosphate groups.
c. A neutral charge because negatively charged phosphate groups and positively charged nitrogenous bases
cancel out.
d. A neutral charge because all molecules in the cell must be neutral.

2. **The rate at which DNA migrates through the gel is determined by

a. The difference in the type of trait the DNA codes for
b. The molecular size of the DNA fragments
c. The difference in the types of bases in DNA fragments
d. The difference in the number of introns and exons in DNA fragments

3. *In gel electrophoresis, molecules usually travel through a gel known as agarose (structure shown above).
Agarose is a…
a. Carbohydrate
b. Fat
c. Nucleotide
d. Protein

4. **The electrophoresis diagram above shows a DNA ladder with DNA fragments of known length, along with
4 additional DNA samples. Which lane matches each description below?

1 2 3 4
This lane contains
the longest DNA
fragment.
This lane contains
the shortest DNA
fragment.
This lane contains a
1500 base pair (bp)
DNA fragment.
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Example:

Setup of Electrophoresis:

Results:

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Practice

1. Caretakers at a zoo are trying to determine which of two male tigers fathered the newest cub. They
obtained DNA from the tiger cub, the mother tiger, and the two male tigers. The DNA was analyzed. The
results of the analysis are shown above.
a. **Explain the properties of DNA that allow it to be separated via gel electrophoresis.

b. On the diagram, circle the largest DNA fragment for each individual.

c. **Identify the male that is most likely to be the father of the cub and support your response with
evidence from the electrophoresis results.

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2. **The DNA of three species was subjected to electrophoresis. Four potential diagrams are shown below. A
student claims that Species B and C are more closely related to each other than species A. Which diagram
best supports this statement? Explain your choice.

Explanation for #2:

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3. Several days after a litter of puppies was born, a breeder noticed one extra puppy in the litter. The diagram
above shows the results of electrophoresis of DNA fragments from all of the dogs. The puppies are labeled
1, 2, 5, and 6. The parent dogs are labeled 3 and 4. Identify which puppy might have been placed into this
litter by mistake. Support your answer with evidence.

4. **Genetic engineering techniques can be used when analyzing and manipulating DNA and RNA. Scientists
used gel electrophoresis to study transcription of gene L and discovered that mRNA strands of three
different lengths are consistently produced. Which of the following explanations best accounts for this
experimental result?
a. Gel electrophoresis can only be used with DNA (not mRNA) so experimental results are not
interpretable.
b. RNA polymerase consistently makes the same errors during transcription of gene L.
c. Gene L is mutated, so RNA polymerase does not always transcribe the correct sequence.
d. Pre-mRNA of gene L is subject to alternative splicing, so three mRNA sequences are possible.

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5. Samples of DNA were isolated from four different individuals and each sample was digested by the same
restriction enzymes. Gel electrophoresis was used to separate the resulting DNA fragments and the results
are shown above. These data best support which of the following hypotheses?
a. Individual 1 is the offspring of 2 and 3.
b. Individual 1 is the offspring of 3 and 4.
c. Individual 2 is the offspring of 1 and 3.
d. Individual 2 is the offspring of 1 and 4.

6. The diagram above illustrates the results of electrophoresis obtained from a family of two adults and three
children and amplified using PCR. The bands represent short repeating sequences of variable length.
Results for another female (X) are included for comparison. The banding patterns of the DNA fragments
reveal that
a. Child 1 and child 2 cannot be biological siblings
b. Child 1 and child 3 likely are similar in appearance to the mother
c. The mother cannot be the biological parent of all three children
d. The mother’s DNA has the same DNA sequence as the father’s DNA
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7. The diagram above shows a segment of DNA with a total length of 4,900 base pairs. The arrows indicate
reaction sites for two restriction enzymes, enzyme X and enzyme Y.
a. **Explain how the principles of gel electrophoresis allow for the separation of DNA fragments.

b. Sketch the results you would expect from electrophoretic separation of fragments from the
following treatments of the DNA segment above. Assume that the digestion occurred under
appropriate conditions and went to completion.
i. Undigested DNA
ii. DNA digested with only enzyme X
iii. DNA digested with only enzyme Y
iv. DNA digested with enzyme X and enzyme Y combined

- Scenario i Scenario ii Scenario iii Scenario iv

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+

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Exit Ticket
Questions 1-4 refer to the following diagram and information.

An evolutionary biologist hypothesizes that two morphologically (structurally) similar plan species are not
closely related. To test the hypothesis, the biologist collects DNA samples from each of the two plant species
and then uses restriction enzymes to cut the DNA samples into fragments, which are then subjected to gel
electrophoresis. The results are shown in figure 1, above.

1. Circle the largest DNA fragments for both species.

2. **Explain how the properties of DNA molecules allow for the separation of DNA fragments.

3. **Given the results shown in Figure 1, which of the following correctly describes a relationship between the
two species?
a. Species B is the ancestor of species B because it has fewer bands.
b. Species A is more complex than species B because it has more bands.
c. Species B has more short fragments of DNA than species A does.
d. Species A has more short fragments of DNA than species B does.

4. *Justify your answer to #3.

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