Indian Institute of Technology Madras

Department of Biotechnology
BT1010 Life Sciences: Mid-semester examination (22nd Oct 2020)

Answer all the questions Total Marks: 50

Q1. What is the difference between the amylose and amylopectin components of starch? What are the
changes expected if the amylopectin content far exceeds that of amylose in starch? (5 Marks)
Q2. Name a biomolecule that has phenanthracene as a part of its structure highlighting its biomedical
importance. (5 Marks)
Q3.
a. Differentiate allopatric speciation from sympatric speciation (2 Marks).
b. Consider IITM ecosystem where several species of animals coexist. List out at least 6 barriers
which block these species to interbred across them that in tun stabilizes their species identities (6 x
0.5 = 3 Marks).

Q4. The average length of DNA in each human chromosome is (3x10^9)/23 nucleotides. This represents
nearly 5 centimetre of DNA and thus poses a formidable packaging problem in the nucleus that is about
5 micrometre in diameter. How does a human cell accommodate such long stretch of DNA that exceeds
its nuclear dimensions? (5 Marks)

Q5. You have been given a task to isolate cellular organelles from an animal cell line and also define the
cellular pathway (locate and trace its route) of a protein “X”. Describe your experimental strategy using
equilibrium density centrifugation and specific antibodies as markers for each fraction. What are the
likely organelles wherein you would locate protein “X”? (5 Marks)

Q6. Consider the alleles of two characters (homozygous dominant form AABB, homozygous recessive
form aabb). Assume that both these alleles obey the Mendal’s law of segregation and independent
assortment. How will you check whether an individual showing dominant phenotype for both the alleles
(note: genotype can be AABB, AaBb, AABb, AaBB) is homozygous or heterozygous? Describe it with
the help of Punnett’s square diagrams (5 Marks).

Q7. (5 Marks)
For the given sequence of a coding strand of DNA:
5’-TTTAACATGGGGACGCCAGCGTTTGCCAATATAAACTAATTCTAG-3’
a) Provide the 5’to 3’ sequence of mRNA that would be transcribed.
b) What would be the length of protein coded by the transcribed mRNA for the above sequence?
Q8. During the S Phase of cell cycle, a human DNA composed of approximately 3 X 109 base pairs is
copied within 2 hours. Considering that catalytic rate of DNA polymerase is 1000 base pairs/sec, how
does the cell manage to replicate such a big molecule of DNA within 2 hours? (5 Marks)
Q9. Explain the diagnostic and therapeutic uses of enzymes? (5 Marks)
Q10. How does cell division in prokaryotes differ from eukaryotes? (5 Marks)