SSM CENTRAL SCHOOL

KUPPANDAPALAYAM

BIOLOGY INVESTIGATORY
PROJECT ON:
EFFECT OF TEMPERATURE ON
AMOUNT OF DNA

A PROJECT REPORT SUBMITTED BY:

S.SRI MADHURITA
GRADE XII - A
YEAR 2019-20
 CERTIFICATE

This is to certify that SRI MADHURITA .S,

Reg.No ___________ , student of class XII A, has
successfully completed the project titled, “EFFECT
OF TEMPERATURE ON AMOUNT OF DNA”
under the guidance of Mrs. M. Panimary and
Mr. S.K. Shaik Mohammed Ali in particular
fulfilment of the curriculum of central Board of
secondary Education (CBSE) leading to the award of
annual examination of the year 2019-2020

INTERNAL EXAMINER EXTERNAL EXAMINER

PRINCIPAL
 ACKNOWLEDGMENT

“There are times when silence speaks so much more

loudly than words of praise to only as good as belittle
person whose words do not express, but only put a veneer
over true feelings, which are gratitude at this point of
time”.
I express my sincere thanks to our principal Mr.
K.A.Mirash Kareem and our school management for
their constant support.
I also extend my sincere gratitude to my biology faculties
Mrs. M.Panimary and Mr. S.K. Shaik Mohammed Ali
for their vital support, guidance and encouragement-
without which this project would have come forth.
 INDEX

S.NO CONTENT Page No.

1. Certificate of excellence 2
2. Acknowledgements 3
3. Aim of Project 5
4. Introduction 6
5. Hypothesis 9
6. Apparatus required 10
7. Procedure 14
8. Result 18

9. Conclusion 19
10.. Bibliography 20
AIM OF THE PROJECT:

To find out if the temperature of ethanol

affects the amount of DNA

Introduction
What is DNA?
DNA is short for deoxyribonucleic acid.
Although DNA looks like very thin long strings under a
microscope, it turns out that DNA has a specific shape.
This shape is called a double helix. On the outside of the
double helix is the backbone which holds the DNA
together.

There are two sets of backbones that twist together.

Between the backbones are the nucleotides represented by
the letters A, T, C, and G. A different nucleotide connects
to each backbone and then connects to another nucleotide
in the centre.
There are four different types of nucleotides: adenine,
thymine, cytosine and guanine. They are usually
represented by their first letter:
A= Adenine
T= Thymine
G= Guanine
C=Cytosine
A always goes with T and G always goes with C.

DNA or RNA?
Even though DNA and RNA both contain genetic
information, they have a difference.
But before I answer that question, What is RNA?
RNA stands for Ribonucleic Acid. A Nucleic Acid is in
every living thing. Its role is to act as the messenger and
carry instructions from DNA for controlling the synthesis
of the proteins. But in some viruses,
RNA gives the instructions and DNA carries them. Now
that I explained what RNA is, let’s go back to the real
question, DNA or RNA?

Here are some differences between DNA and RNA:

1. DNA has 2 strands and RNA only has one.
2. Thymine is replaced with Uracil in RNA.
3. DNA can be replicated, but RNA is synthesized from
DNA.
 Hypothesis
The hypothesis is that the temperature of the Ethanol
affects the amount of DNA extracted from a Strawberry.
My hypothesis is that the hot ethanol at temperature 62 C
might not work because the ethanol might evaporate, and
then there won't be enough Ethanol to break the cell wall.
If the Ethanol is cold, and the strawberry is also cold (at
temperature 1C), it might not work. But if the Ethanol is
room temperature (14 C) it might break the cell wall.
 Apparatus
• 3 Ethanol bottles – 40 ml ethanol in each
• 12 Strawberries – all same size and weight
• Weighing scale to measure the weight of strawberries
 Buffer (mix about 30 ml of dish detergent and 7.5 ml
salt into 500 ml of water)
• 12 cheese cloths
• 12 Ziploc bags
• 12 Test Tubes and caps - medium size
• Paper Towels
• 1 tube rack
• Gloves
• 100 ml measuring Erlenmeyer flask
• 3 Funnels
• Labels for test tubes
• 3 Droppers
• 12 mini test tubes
• 1 ruler
• Thermometer
 Procedure
Before Experiment:
1. Keep all the test tubes in the tube rack.

2. Before you start the experiment, take 9 strawberries and

put one in each Ziploc bag.

3. Then freeze them for 1-2 days in the freezer. Make sure
you don’t have any air in the bag before you freeze the
strawberries.

4. Put one ethanol bottle (40 ml) in the refrigerator so that

it is cool and take it when you are at the part of the
experiment where you need to add ethanol.

5. Put the other 2 ethanol (40 ml each) bottles with the rest
of the materials.

6. For the experiment you will need a buffer (mix dish

detergent and salt into water) If you have any left-over you
can poor it down the sink or use it again to do this
experiment again. Keep this mixture in 100 ml measuring
flask

7. Take 3 test tubes and label them, “Hot”, “Cold”, and

“Room” to indicate the temperature of ethanol used for the
experiment. Hot – 60 degrees Celsius, Cold – 5 degrees
Celsius (approximately)

8. Take 3 mini test tubes and label them, “Hot”, “Cold”,

and “Room”

The Experiment:
1. Mash the strawberry through the Ziploc bag in your
hand. Be gentle and easy not to break the bag or hit against
the experiment materials.

2. Add 1 tablespoon of Buffer solution and continue

mixing and mashing the strawberry till it becomes a
homogenous mixture.
3. Place the cheesecloth in the opening of the funnel and
keep the funnel in the test tube that is marked “Room”. We
will be using the other two test tubes when we use ethanol
at Hot and Cold temperatures.

4. Carefully pour the strawberry mixture into the test tube

making sure to catch the solids with the gauze. Take extra
precaution not to let any solids go into the test tube by
holding the cheese cloth with a finger.

5. Hold the cheese cloth ends with one hand while

squeezing the contents with your fingers to extract more
juice.

6. Slowly add the ethanol at room temperature to the test

tube. Take care not to tilt or tip the test tube; do not mix
the two liquids.

7. Close the test tube with the cap and gently tilt the test
tube up and down for 5 times.
8. Observe the line between the strawberry mixture and the
ethanol. You will notice a white thread-like cloud
appearing at this line. This is strawberry DNA. The DNA
will clump together and float to the top of the alcohol layer

9. Take the dropper and lift the clump together into a mini
test tube marked as “Room”

10. Measure the amount of DNA collected by marking the

measurement with a sharpie.

11. Now repeat the entire experiment from step 1 till 10

using Cold (5 degrees Celsius) and Hot (60 degrees
Celsius) Ethanol (. Also ensure to use test tubes and mini
test tubes marked as Hot and Col respectively.

12. After completing the experiment with three types of

Ethanol and getting the measurements, compare the
amount of DNA collected with three different temperatures
of ethanol and record the findings.
 Results

Here are the results of the experiment:

Ethanol
temperature 14℃ 62℃ 1℃
Ethanol
quantity used 15 ml 15 ml 15 ml
Amount of
DNA 3 ml 5.5 ml 4 ml
extracted
 Conclusion
Based on the above results, the amount of DNA extracted
is highest when the Ethanol temperature is higher than the
others.
 Bibliography
 http://www.statedclearly.com

 http://www.ornl.gov/sic/techresourses/
Human_Geenome/project/info.com

 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA

Books:
 DNA by Natalie Hyde
 Genes & DNA by Richard Walker
THANK YOU