Department of Plant Breeding and Genetics

College of Agriculture & Food Science

Visayas State University
Visca, Baybay City, Leyte 6521-A Philippines

Name: Maggie Lou M. Gubalane Date Perfomed : January 25, 2018

Lab Schedule: Thursday (7-10) Date Submitted: February 1, 2018

Biology 22 Laboratory Exercise No.1-A

Chemical Basis of Heredity The Structure of the Genetic Material

Direction: Copy and answer the following questions in a letter size bond paper. This will be submitted in
the following laboratory meeting.

1. How does DNA fulfill the requirements of a genetic material?

For a molecule to serve as the genetic material, it must be able to replicate, store
information, express information, and allow variation by mutation.

2. The analysis of four samples of double-stranded DNA yielded the following information:

a. 11% Cytosine b. 42% Guanine c. 39% Thymine d. 23% Adenine

a) What would be the percentage of the other bases in each sample? (12pts)
a. 11% Cytosine c. 39% Thymine
11% Guanine 39% Adenine
89%Thymine 61% Cytosine
89% Adenine 61% Guanine

b. 42% Guanine d. 23% Adenine

58%Thymine 23% Thymine
42% Cytosine 77% Guanine
58% Adenine 77% Cytosine

b) Which of the samples are obtained from the same organism? (1pt)

The samples came from different organism because they have different percentages.

3. The average length of the double helix in a human chromosome is 3.8 cm.

a) Approximately how many base pairs would be present in such a chromosome? (2pts)
 Approximately there are 797.16 base pairs in a chromosome.
b) If all chromosomes of the human complement were 3.8 cm. in length, approximately how many
base pairs would be present in a sperm nucleus? (2pts)
There is 18,334 base pairs are present in sperm nucleus.

4. If the DNA of E. coli has 4.2 x 106 nucleotide pairs in its DNA, and if an average cistron contains
1,500 nucleotide pairs, how many cistrons does it possess? (1pt)

(4.2 𝑥 106 )
1500
= 2800 cistrons