Study questions
The following questions
are intended as a guide to help you focus your studying. You must, however,
do more than memorize the answers to each of these questions. You need to
understand the material and be able to discuss the concepts in your own words.
Use active study techniques as much as possible (i.e., you must do more than
just read over your answers many times). It may help in reviewing
the lab activities to study together with your lab group.
back to Study Aids
DNA fingerprinting
lab
1. Review your answers to all of the questions in the lab handout. You may
want to make a copy of the handout for yourself before you turn yours in.
2. For each lab procedure, review the steps of the procedure, and be able
to explain why each step was conducted. You are still responsible for understanding
the steps in the procedure that you personally did not do, such as the staining
and de-staining steps. You may be asked to construct a standard curve based
on hypothetical size marker data, and then determine the size of unknown fragments,
as you did with your own data.
3. Be able to explain the purpose of all of the materials we used in the lab
procedure (e.g., all of the DNA samples, the restriction enzymes, the size
marker, etc.).
4. Why do the restriction enzymes produce different sets of fragments from
different DNA samples?
5. How does electrophoresis separate the DNA fragments?
6. Be able to interpret the results of both your gel and any hypothetical
gel that I might make up for the exam; how do you determine which samples
match?
7. Be able to discuss applications of DNA fingerprinting technology other
than placing a suspect at a crime scene.
