05 QUANTITATIVE POLYMERASE CHAIN REACTION questions
1. Polymerase chain reaction can test for:
A. biodegrading enzymes
B. specific microorganism,
C. family of microorganisms
D. expressed genes
2. RNA is copied into complementary DNA (cDNA) by:
A. Taq DNA polymerase
B. RNA polymerase II
C. Reverse transcriptase
D. Uracil-N-Glycosylase
3. The cycle threshold is:
A. The total number of cycles performed during a real-time PCR reaction
B. The cycle that a sample crosses a certain point during a real-time PCR reaction
C. The cycle number that a sample enters the plateau phase of PCR
D. None of the above
Reaction mixtures were incubated in a PCR thermocycler capable of monitoring
fluorescence. The figure shows relative fluorescence values measured after each cycle using
(A) and (B) DNA samples.
4. At the start which sample had more copies of the target sequence?
A. .
B. .
True or false:
5. Quantitative PCR allows direct measurement of the number of microbes in a sample.
6. Quantitative PCR can both detect and quantify a specific sequence in a DNA sample.
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7. Quantitative PCR uses a fluorescent dye which binds to double stranded DNA, or a
fluorescent marker which is tagged to each gene copy.
8. Quantitative polymerase chain reaction is one of the most widely available technologies
to identify contaminant degraders and can be used to indicate the presence of the
desired organism within environmental samples.
9. Real-time PCR can also be used to calculate the amount of specific kinds of genetic
material other than DNA, such as RNA.
10. Reverse transcriptase -PCR can be used to determine how gene expression changes over
time or under different conditions.
11. Reverse transcriptase -PCR is the most sensitive technique of mRNA detection and
quantitation currently available.
12. The enzyme reverse transcriptase enables scientists to produce what product?
A. Restriction endonucleases
B. cDNA molecules
C. Restriction fragment length polymorphisms
D. Blunt end restriction fragments
E. mRNA transcripts
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