Principles of Genetics
Lab Practical 1 Study Guide
Study Guide for the Following Labs:
The laboratory exam will be a written test. It will cover concepts reviewed in lab. However, there
may also be pictures of the stages of mitosis and meiosis. Use this study guides along with all
handouts and notes from each lab to prepare for the test.
Lab 1 – Simple DNA Extraction, Mitosis and Meiosis
Lab 2 – Patterns of Inheritance and Chi-Square Analysis
Lab 3 – Murder Mystery Lab-DNA Fingerprinting
Lab 4 – Human Mitochondrial DNA
Lab 1 – Simple DNA Extraction, Mitosis and Meiosis
1. Purpose of the reagents used in the DNA extraction exercise (banana lab)
2. Be able to identify stages of mitosis in the onion root tip, the fish blastula, and simulation
beads. (You may want to review the above slides so you can identify the stages. Slides and
beads can be found in the Student Success Center.)
a. Prophase
b. Metaphase
c. Anaphase
d. Telophase
i. Cleavage furrow
ii. Cell plate
3. Be able to identify stages of meiosis using the simulation beads.
a. Meiosis I
i. Crossing over
b. Meiosis II
Lab 2 – Patterns of Inheritance and Chi-Square Analysis
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
Be able to interpret monohybrid and dihybrid crosses.
Do a Punnett square or forked line method for monohybrid and dihybrid crosses.
Be able to calculate genotypic and phenotypic ratios.
Know the equation for determining a chi-square value.
Know how to calculate the chi-square value.
Know how to determine the expected values from your data.
Be able to interpret your chi-square value using a chi-square table.
Know how to determine the degrees of freedom.
1
9. Be prepared to interpret a p value (what is significant; what is nonsignificant? Accept or reject
the hypothesis?)
Lab 3 – Murder Mystery Lab-DNA Fingerprinting
1. Know what a VNTR (variable number of tandem repeats) is.
2. Why are VNTRs a popular tool for forensic or paternity testing? If you were using VNTRs for this
reason, would you use 1 VNTR? Why or why not?
3. Know that we amplified the pMCT118 (amplified region. It is a noncoding region of
chromosome 1, which has a repeat unit of 16 bp.).
4. Know that the # of copies that most people have range from 14 to 40 copies of the 16 bp
repeat.
5. Know how we retrieved your DNA (from what tissues?). How is the process different between
the two DNA extraction methods?
6. Know the purpose of chelex.
7. Understand the purpose of boiling the cell sample.
8. Know the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) procedure and concepts. Be able to thoroughly
describe the process.
a. Be able to list and describe all of the ingredients in the PCR reaction and their purpose.
b. Know what the purpose of mineral oil is.
9. Be able to thoroughly describe gel electrophoresis concepts.
a. Understand the purpose of the DNA marker and loading dye.
b. Where does agarose comes from?
c. Know how to calculate the amount of agarose to add to the buffer in order to make a
gel with a certain percentage of agarose.
d. Be able to interpret a picture of an agarose gel with a DNA marker and VNTRs to identify
a person or organism.
e. Be able to explain how DNA fingerprinting is used for forensic and paternity testing.
f. Be able to discuss the following concepts:
i. Overall charge of DNA
ii. How DNA moves through the gel
iii. How small DNA fragments move through the gel compared to larger DNA
fragments
iv. DNA marker
v. Loading dye
Lab 4 – Human Mitochondrial DNA
10. Be able to identify mitochondrial DNA characteristics.
11. Be able to describe the endosymbiotic theory.
2
12. Which is under more selective pressure and why - Gene coding versus nongene coding regions
in mtDNA.
a. Why is the control region hypervariable (many mutations)?
13. Why does mitochondrial DNA accumulate more mutations than nuclear DNA?
14. What is the function of the mitochondrial control region?
15. How do single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), which are substitutions, arise in a population?
16. Why is mtDNA popular for population studies? How is it inherited?
17. Know that we amplified PCR product from the control region that was approximately 440 base
pairs (bp).
18. Understand PCR and electrophorese concepts for this lab.
19. Be able to explain why we aligned the mtDNA sequences.
20. Understand that the # of mutations seen between different populations or individuals is
directly proportional to length of time that two groups have been separated.
21. Know that there is an average of 7 differences or SNPs in the human mitochondrial region that
we studied. (This is the average that we got when we did the sequence alignment of individuals
in different countries.)
22. Scientists calibrated that all humans diverged from a common ancestor 150,000 years ago.
23. If modern humans diverged 150,000 years ago and 7 mutations accumulated in this region, how
many years did it take to accumulate 1 mutation in this region? (This is the molecular clock.)
24. Review that we calculated about 26 mutations between the modern human and the
Neanderthal DNA.
25. How can we use the molecular clock calculated above to determine about how long ago
Neanderthal’s and modern humans diverged from a common ancestor?
a. Know how to determine how long ago Neanderthals and modern humans separated
from a common ancestor based on the # of SNPs between Neanderthals and modern
humans using the modern human molecular clock.
3