DNA Test Questions:
1) Name 3 DNA manipulation processes and how they are used, as stated in the
book.
a. Denaturation: heats DNA to weaken the hydrogen bonds and split the
DNA into single strands.
b. Annealing or Renaturation: the cooling of single strands of DNA to fuse
complementary strands.
c. Polymerase extension: uses a class of enzymes called polymerases to fill
in incomplete DNA strands in order to deal with sticky ends.
d. Nuclease degredation: uses enzymes called nucleases to remove
nucleotides from DNA strands.
e. Ligation: uses a class of enzymes to ligate or link together fragments of
DNA molecules.
f. Amplification: given some DNA molecules, a tehnique called ymerase
chain reaction can be used to make multiple copies of a subset of the
strands present.
g. Gel electrophoresis: measures the length of DNA molecules and separates
them by length.
h. Filtering: separates or extracts specific molecules from a particular strand
i. Synthesis: creates DNA molecules.
j. Sequencing: reads out the sequence of a DNA molecule.
2) What is the difference between Exonucease and Endonucease?
a. Exonuclease: removes nucleotides from the ends of Molecules
b. Endonuclease: cuts either within DNA molecules or within single DNA
strands by destroying the covalent bonds between adjacent nucleotides.
3) Give the 3 main differences between Classical and DNA computing.
Classical Computing
DNA Computing
Information is represented as a
Information is represented as a
bitstring. Either 0 or 1
quarternary string Either A,C,T,G
Sequential computation
Parallel computation
Computation performed by moving
Computation performed by
bits through logic gates
manipulating DNA molecules
4) What are the 4 nucleotides and how do they bind together? How could you exploit
this to represent vertices and edges in a Hamiltonian Path Problem?
A-T
C-G
You could use a unique string to denote a vertex, and the complement to denote
an edge.
A
C
Vp
G
T
C
Vq
A
Therefore and Edge coming into V, would have the complement of Vp as the end of its
nucleotide chain. An edge leaving V would have the complement of Vq as the beginning
of its nucleotide chain.
5) What is a drawback of using this type of representation for vertices and edges?
Large numbers of cities requires extremely large representations for vertices and
edges, making the amount of physical DNA produced unmanageable.