Students make observations about the eye colors of different fruit fly mutants and then more closely examine the mutants' eye pigments by separating them using paper chromatography. Students perform a genetic engineering experiment using bacterial transformation to introduce a bioluminescence gene into Escherichia coli. Students transform E. coli with a plasmid that contains the lux bioluminescence gene to produce bacteria that glow in the dark. This activity helps students understand what genes do and how they can be manipulated by genetic engineering. Students digest bacteriophage lambda DNA with different restriction enzymes and analyze the resulting DNA profiles.
Students compare the DNA fragments with the known restriction map of bacteriophage lambda.
This activity demonstrates how DNA sequences can be mapped and characterized, such as in the Human Genome Project and how DNA is cut and arranged during genetic engineering. A cell must decide which DNA to use to make the proteins it needs to be that cell. Since smooth muscle doesn't need tropomyosin to be able to contract, it doesn't make the tropomyosin protein. During this experiment, students will separate out the muscle proteins from cardiac, skeletal, and smooth muscle using protein gel electrophoresis. Students will compare the muscle proteins to actin, myosin, and tropomyosin protein controls and determine which proteins each muscle type makes.