The Study Questions below are intended as a study tool. Write short answers to them using your lecture notes and textbook as references. After you have worked on them alone for awhile, I strongly recommend that you meet with other students in a study group to discuss the Study Questions and your answers. You may also raise these Study Questions in lecture and during meetings with me. Exam questions will be based on the correct and complete answers to the Study Questions.

1. More vocabulary. Be prepared to give a definition of the following. The definition should include function:

macrophage

neutrophil

histamine

inflammation

pyrogen

T lymphocyte

B lymphocyte

antigen

antibody

complement proteins

MHC proteins

allergen

antigen-presenting cell

T-receptor

B-receptor

memory cells

mast cells

2. HIV kills helper T lymphocytes. Predict the effect of HIV on the non-specific immune response and the specific immune response.

3. The drug cyclopsporin inhibits activity of cytotoxic T cells. Predict the effect of cyclosporin on the human immune response. What is cyclosporin used for?

4. What are antibodies? How are they different from B cell receptors? What do they bind to and how do they contribute to the specific immune response? What kinds of cells make them?

5. Describe what a vaccine is. How does it affect the specific immune system to improve your response to a potential pathogen.

6. How do antihistamines reduce allergy symptoms?

7. How does RNA differ from DNA in its structure? How does RNA differ from DNA in its function?

8. What is a genome? How large is the human genome and how many genes does it contain? How big is the corn genome and how many genes does it contain?

10. It is thought that human cells can produce more proteins than there are genes to code for them. How might this occur?

11. Define transcription and translation. How many kinds of RNA are involved in each?

12. Part of the coding sequence of a gene produces an mRNA sequence of AAGGCUCCUCCAAGCGGC. What is the DNA sequence? What is the sequence of amino acids produced from this mRNA? (Use the decoder ring on page 197 of your text).

13. Where do ribosomal RNAs and transfer RNAs come from? What do they do?

14. Where does transcription occur in a cell? Where does translation occur?

15. At the gene level, what is different between a nerve cell and a white blood cell?

16. At the gene level, how do external signals like hormones have many of their effects on cell function?

17. Is the promoter at the beginning or the end of the transcribed region of a gene? How is this placement appropriate for promoter function?

18. What does RNA polymerase do? How can gene regulatory proteins affect RNA polymerase? Where do gene regulatory proteins come from?

19. How can one gene control the transcription of many other genes? How is this relevant to cancer?

20. What are introns and exons? How are they related to alternative splicing? How does alternative splicing contradict the hypothesis that one gene codes for one protein?

21. How much of the human genome codes for proteins? How much of the human genome codes for introns?

22. How does a single base substitution in the gene for hemoglobin lead to sickle cell disease?

23. Most cancers start only after several different mutations occur. Explain.

24. How do mutations cause cancer?

25. How does DNA polymerase differ from RNA polymerase? How is DNA polymerase similar to RNA polymerase? Which is involved in cell division? Which is involved in proteins synthesis?

26. There is a T- or B-cell receptor that can bind to an antigen from any possible pathogen you might be exposed to and trigger a specific immune response. Explain how this works.

27. In our discussion of gene regulation, we grouped genes into three categories: constitutive, inducible, and silent. Describe these three types of genes.

28. More vocabulary. Be prepared to give a definition of the following. The definition should include function:

ribosome

tRNA

promoter

enhancer

gene regulatory protein

regulatory gene

transcriptional regulation (of genes)

methylation

complementary base pairing

transcription

translation

alternative splicing

exon

intron

genome

29. To the extent that we discussed it, what causes mutations?

30. How does a single base substitution in the gene for hemoglobin lead to sickle cell disease?

31. How do mutations in oncogenes lead to cancer? How do mutations in tumor suppressor genes lead to cancer? How does an inherited mutation to the BRCA 1 gene predispose women to breast cancer?

32. Compare and contrast oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes. How are they similar? How are they different?

33. Most cancers start only after several different mutations occur. Explain.

34. What are some of the "causes" of cancer and how do they act? In general terms, how do some of the cures for cancer work?

35. Diploid and haploid are terms that describe how many sets of homologous chromosomes are present in a cell. Explain these terms. Which of your cells are diploid and which are haploid?

36. What important events occur during interphase, prophase, metaphase, anaphase, and telophase of mitosis?

37. How do chromatids get moved into daughter cells appropriately during mitosis? What is the difference between a chromosome and a chromatid?

38. Meiosis makes four haploid cells from one diploid cell. What makes this essential to sexual reproduction?

39. How does Meiosis I differ from Meiosis II?

40. Be able to define the following terms:

allele

diploid

haploid

dominant allele

recessive allele

homozygous

heterozygous

phenotype

genotype

41. Presence or absence of a widow's peak in the human hairline is controlled by a single gene. The allele for a widow's peak is dominant. The allele for a straight hairline is recessive. My wife has a widow's peak and I do not. Neither of our two children have widow's peaks. What possible combinations of hairline alleles do my wife and I have? What combination of hairline alleles do our two children have? (You can use a Punnett Square to answer).

42. For Mendel's peas, what made the dominant allele for purple flower color dominant over the recessive allele for white flower color?

43. What event during meiosis can lead to the trisomy 21 that confers Down's syndrome?

44. What is a karyotype? How would it allow you to see the sex of an unborm child? How would it allow you to know whether the unborn child had Down's Syndrome?

45. Folk singer Woody Guthrie died of Huntington's disease. His son Arlo does not have the disease. What alleles for the disease would be carried by Woody Guthrie and his son Arlo? What is the chance that Woody Guthrie's daughter Nora has the disease?

46. A person with type O blood has children with another person having type AB blood. What blood type alleles do these parents carry? What types of blood can they give or receive by transfusion and why? What blood types can their children have and with what probabilities?

47. A gene that contributes to male pattern baldness is on the X-chromosome. A man having this gene and showing male pattern baldness marries a woman with no male pattern baldness in her family. What is the probability that male children of this couple will exhibit male pattern baldness of the type carried by the father? A female child of this couple marries a man who does not show male pattern baldness. What is the probability that their male children will have the gene for male pattern baldness carried by their grandfather?

48. Meiosis in human males leads to four sperm cells. How many of these can lead to a male child? How many can lead to a female child? Explain.

49. What observations and logical assumptions does the theory of biological evolution try to explain?

50. How many sperm cells result from meiosis of a cell in the seminiferous tubules of the male testes? What are the parts of sperm cells and how does each contribute to their function?

51. How do hormones from the brain stimulate sperm formation and create facial hair in human males?

52. Excessive testosterone has undesirable side effects. How does the brain keep testosterone at a manageable level?