CELL BIO PRACTICE

Question

Answer

An E. coli cell under well-defined laboratory conditions divides about every

20 minutes.

How many genes does an E. coli have?

4,300

The original atmosphere of Earth is thought to have been rich in

CO2, N2, H2, H2S, and CO

The genome of eukaryotes consists of genes derived from

both archaebacteria and bacteria.

Solid tissues in animals include epithelial tissue, _______ tissue, nervous tissue, and
muscle.

connective

In fluorescence microscopy, the immediate source of the light detected is light that has been
emitted by
_______ the sample.
The feature that most clearly separates eukaryotes from prokaryotes is the presence of
_______ in eukaryotic cells.

a nucleus

What is the theoretical diffraction limit of resolution of a light microscope used to look at a
sample through oil?

0.22 m

What is the smallest number of ultracentrifugation steps needed to separate nuclei from
ribosomes in a cellular lysate?

In contrast to animal cells, yeast or bacterial cell cultures can be grown on fairly simple
media without the need to add amino acids or various vitamins and hormones. This is
primarily because animal cells

come from organisms that have

specialized cell types.

Which of the following is a high-resolution light microscope technique for detecting

interactions between proteins?

FRET (fluorescence resonance energy

transfer)

Which of the following are the most commonly used mammals for genetic studies?

Mice

Which of the following is not a unicellular eukaryote? a. Saccharomyces cerevisiae b.

Paramecium c. Archaebacteria d. Chlamydomonas

Archaebacteria

Transmission electron microscopy is used to

observe subcellular organelles and

macromolecules.

The original cell was thought to have arisen from the enclosure of self-replicating _______
by a phospholipid membrane.

RNA

The source of the atmospheric oxygen necessary for the development of oxidative
metabolism is thought to have been

photosynthesis.

Approximately how many doublings can normal human fibroblasts undergo in culture?

50 to 100

Embryonic stem cells are different from primary cell cultures or permanent cell lines

generating many cell types.

derived from a tissue in that they are capable of

Chloroplasts are thought to have originated from endosymbiosis of _______ by a large host
cell.

photosynthetic eubacteria such as

cyanobacteria

Bacteriophages are

viruses that infect bacteria.

Molecules that are partly water-soluble and partly water-insoluble are

amphipathic.

Transport across biological membranes is speeded by what class of biological molecules?

Proteins

Chymotrypsin, trypsin, elastase, and thrombin are all grouped together as members of the
serine protease family because each

uses the same catalytic mechanism

involving the same key amino acids.

Which of the following classes of amino acids is buried within the folded structure of the
protein?

Nonpolar

Which of the following is not true of coenzymes?

Chemically, they are branched amino

acids.

Lipids with unsaturated fatty acids

decrease the fluidity of membranes.

Phospholipids consist of a 3-carbon core to which fatty acids and a phosphate group are
linked. The most common 3-carbon core is

glycerol.

Enzymes act by

decreasing the activation energy.

Which of the following is not one of the four major classes of organic molecules in the cell? Water

Enzymes affect the transition state of a chemical reaction by

a. binding to the substrate(s). b.

providing a surface on which the
reactions converting substrate to product
can occur more rapidly. c. altering the
conformation of the substrate(s) to
approach that of the transition state.

Coenzymes are chemically related to

vitamins.

All of the following are ways in which enzyme activity can be regulated except

by modulation of intracellular sucrose

concentrations.

What is the effect of a barrel on the permeability of a membrane?

It increases permeability

Passive transport across a membrane refers to

transport in the energetically favorable

direction.

What is the major carbohydrate-storage molecule in plants?

Starch

Proteins must have more than one _______ to have a quaternary structure.

polypeptide chain

The most abundant molecule in cells is

water

Introducing a double bond into a fatty acid has the effect of putting a(n) _______ into the
conformation of the molecule.

kink

How many common amino acids are there?

20

The three-dimensional structure of a protein is analyzed most definitively by

X-ray crystallography.

About 50% of the mass of most biological membranes consists of lipids and about 50%
consists of proteins. Therefore,

the membranes contain more molecules

of lipid than of protein.

Cholesterol, a membrane lipid in animals, has a chemical structure similar to

estradiol

A disulfide bond is formed between _______ residues.

cysteine

The (alpha) helix is an example of which level of protein structure?

Secondary

carrier proteins that facilitate the

Whereas small uncharged molecules can diffuse through the hydrophobic core of a
passage of specific molecules across
phospholipid bilayer, a larger polar substance such as glucose must enter cells by binding to
membranes.
The lock-and-key and induced-fit models are two alternative models that can explain how
enzymes and substrates interact. These two models can be distinguished from each other
according to changes in the

shape as the substrate and enzyme bind.

In the fluid mosaic model of biological membrane structure, transmembrane proteins are

embedded nearly randomly in the lipid

bilayer.

The end product of the anaerobic metabolism of glucose may be any of the following except methanol.

Under aerobic conditions, the NADH formed during glycolysis

provides additional energy by donating

its electrons to the electron transport
chain.

In plants, the molecule that captures energy from sunlight is

chlorophyll

Which of the following is a key molecule in the electron transport chain in mitochondria?

Cytochrome c

Gluconeogenesis normally starts from

a. amino acids. b. glycerol. c. lactate.

Each photocenter in a chloroplast consists of hundreds of antenna pigment molecules that

absorb light and transfer energy to a reaction center

chlorophyll.

Animal cells can synthesize glucose (gluconeogenesis) from all of the following except

fatty acids.

The ATP synthases of mitochondria and chloroplasts are examples of _______ proteins in
which polypeptide rotation provides a mechanical coupling to ATP synthesis.

motor

What is the major site of energy production in the form of ATP in human cells?

The inner mitochondrial membrane

In humans, how many amino acids must be taken up in the diet?

The role of cytochrome c in the electron transport chain is to

transfer electrons from complex III to

complex IV.

Because fatty acids are synthesized by the stepwise addition of acetyl CoA derivatives, they
2
differ in length by units of _______ carbon(s).
Antimetabolite chemotherapy succeeds as a treatment for childhood leukemia because

cancer cells are fast growing.

Which statement correctly describes the difference between the proton gradient across the
inner mitochondrial membrane and the proton gradient across the thylakoid membrane of
chloroplasts?

The first creates an electrochemical

gradient, while the second is largely a
chemical gradient.

What is the change in free energy (G) for the hydrolysis of ATP to ADP and Pi in the cell?

12 kcal/mol

The carbon skeletons of amino acids are derived from

intermediates in glycolysis and the citric

acid cycle.

Together, glycolysis and the citric acid cycle directly generate two molecules of ATP and
two molecules of GTP. Most of the energy derived from the oxidation of glucose comes
from the oxidation of the _______ generated from _______.

NADH; the citric acid cycle

The Calvin cycle is involved in the synthesis of _______ from _______.

glucose; carbon dioxide

All organisms can utilize _______ as a nitrogen source.

ammonia

What are the energetic consequences of coupling a reaction with a +G to one with a larger
G?

A G that is favorable overall and drives

the reaction with a +G in the forward
direction

Nucleotide chains are elongated in the 5-to-3 direction. The 5 and 3 refer to the chemical
positions on the

ribose or deoxyribose.

In polysaccharide biosynthesis, the activated metabolic intermediate of glucose is

UDP-glucose.

The electrochemical gradient across the mitochondrial inner membrane drives the import of
cytochrome c.
all of the following except
Light is captured by _______ different photosystems associated with the thylakoid
membranes of chloroplasts.

two

How many carbons does the acetate group of acetyl CoA have?

What is the net yield of ATP molecules per molecule of glucose from the process of
glycolysis?

Cleavage by Dicer; association with

Which of the following correctly outlines the process of RNA interference, beginning with a
RISC; unwinding of siRNA; pairing
double-stranded RNA molecule?
with target mRNA; mRNA cleavage

Transgenic plants are easier to produce than transgenic animals because

plants can be grown more easily from

single cultured cells into which
recombinant DNA has been introduced

The characterization of restriction endonucleases was a key step in the development of

recombinant DNA technology. What is the function of these enzymes?

Cleavage of DNA at specific sequences

Which of the following techniques is used to inactivate a gene by altering the DNA that
encodes it?

Homologous recombination

The CRISPR/Cas system is a fast and powerful method to introduce mutations into cellular
Mutant copy of target gene, guide RNA,
genomes via homologous recombination to study the function of genes and the proteins they
and Cas9
encode. Which of the following are necessary reagents for CRISPR/Cas?
Which of the following terms refers to a collection of clones that contain all the genomic or
mRNA sequences of a particular cell type?

Recombinant DNA library

The enzyme that synthesizes DNA using RNA templates is called

reverse transcriptase.

The SDS in SDS-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) of a protein is used to

denature the protein and give it an

overall negative charge.

Which of the following is not necessary in a plasmid vector to facilitate successful cloning?

IRES (internal ribosomal entry site)

What technique would you use to determine if the level of a specific mRNA had been
increased in response to an inducer?

Northern blotting

The two strands of DNA in the double helix are held together by

hydrogen bonds between the bases of

each strand.

A restriction enzyme with a four-base recognition site would cleave DNA with a statistical
frequency of once every

256 base pairs.

The process by which proteins are made from RNA templates is called

translation.

Which of the following correctly describes a cDNA molecule?

A DNA copy of an RNA sequence

synthesized by the enzyme reverse
transcriptase

Which of the following serves as an adaptor between amino acids and mRNA during
translation?

tRNA

Which of the following correctly represents the distinction between the terms genotype
and phenotype?

The genotype is the genetic composition

of an organism, whereas the phenotype
is its physical appearance.

All of the following are examples of cloning vectors except a. plasmids. b. cosmids. c. yeast
bacteriophages.
artificial chromosomes (YACs). d. bacteriophages.
Transgenic mice carry a foreign gene

in all of their cells.

How many molecules would be produced from two molecules of DNA following five
rounds of PCR amplification?

64

Bioinformatics is

a field of biology that is focused on

developing the computational methods
to analyze and extract useful biological
information from the sequences of
DNA.

The eukaryote Caenorhabditis elegans has been used especially in the study of

animal development.

Which of the following organisms has the highest percentage of its genome used to encode
protein?

Haemophilus influenza

A collection of all the RNAs that are expressed at any given time in a cell are referred to as
the

transcriptome.

In 2001, two groups of researchers announced their successful completion of draft

sequences of the human genome. Which of the following statements about these draft
sequences is true?

Both groups presented draft sequences

that cover only the euchromatin portion
of the genome.

As an example of synthetic biology, the pharmaceutical company Sanofi developed a

therapeutic treatment for malaria. Which of the following was the strategy?

Develop a new yeast strain that

produces artemsinic acid

The main difference between the genomes of the bacteria Haemophilus influenzae and E.
coli is that

the genome of E. coli is approximately

three times the size of the H. influenzae
genome.

Humans have about 21,000 genes that encode proteins. It is estimated that due to alternative
splicing and protein modifications, these genes can give rise to how many different
100,000
proteins?
Which of the following methods can accurately quantify the amount of mRNA expressed in
DNA microarray and RNA-seq
a given cell or tissue sample?
An estimated 40% of the human genome contains proteins related to proteins that are also
present in a diverse number of other species. These proteins are involved in which of the
following cellular processes?

a. Replication b. Transcription c.
Translation

All of the following are methods that allow scientists to investigate protein-protein
interactions. Which method utilizes gene expression as the detection component?

Yeast two-hybrid

Neandertals are thought to be our closest evolutionary relatives, having diverged from
humans 300,000 to 400,000 years ago, and their genome has been sequenced. Which of the
following statements about humans and Neandertals is false?

The Neandertal genome was

surprisingly GC-rich.

Experimentally, you discover that in addition to stimulating the G protein, the epinephrine
receptor can also directly stimulate glycogen synthase, bypassing the intermediate proteins.
This would be an example of

a feedforward relay.

The plant Arabidopsis thaliana contains significantly more genes than either C. elegans or
Drosophila. Which of the following statements is true?

The large number of genes results from

duplication of large segments of the

Arabidopsis genome
Two-dimensional gel electrophoresis is not an acceptable method to protein-protein
interactions. Which of the following statements best describe the reason why?

The SDS-PAGE gel denatures all the

proteins, preventing any quaternary
interactions.

In RNAi screens, siRNAs are incubated with cells in culture to assess functional
consequences of the targeted gene. Which of the following statements is true in regards to
the siRNA and its action?

The siRNA is homologous to and binds

the mRNA leading to degradation of the
mRNA.

Which of the following is the first step in next-generation sequencing?

The DNA sample is fragmented into

smaller pieces.

Which of the following methods would best be used to determine posttranslational

modifications to a protein, such as phosphorylation?

Tandem mass spectrometry

In exerting its biological activity on cells, epi binds to a cell surface receptor, which
activates a G protein, which then activates cAMP-dependent protein kinase, then phos
kinase, then gly synthase, which then breaks down glu. This is an example of

a signaling pathway

Which of the following molecular biology methods would best be used to directly determine
DNA microarray
the relative level of all mRNAs in a given cell or tissue?
Which of the following statements about exons is false?

An exon may contain sequences for

small nucleolar RNAs.

Extensive digestion of chromatin with micrococcal nuclease was found to yield particles
called nucleosome core particles that appear as beads when viewed by electron microscopy. One molecule of H1 protein
Which of the following is not found in the nucleosome core particle?
The ENCODE project revealed that as much as 75% of the genome in humans is actually
transcribed into RNA. Most of this is non-protein coding RNA. Which of the following
include two new classes of noncoding RNA discovered by the ENCODE project?

MicroRNA and lncRNA

Partial digestion of chromatin with micrococcal nuclease was found to yield DNA
fragments approximately 200 base pairs long. What accounts for this phenomenon?

This result suggests that the binding of

proteins to DNA in chromatin protects
regions of DNA from nuclease
digestion.

The human genome contains only 20,000 to 25,000 actual gene sequences, yet the human
genome can produce up to 100,000 gene products. Which of the following processes
accounts for this difference?

Alternative splicing

The percentage of the average human gene that encodes proteins is approximately

3%

Which of the following describe centromeric sequences in humans?

c. It consists of 171 base-pair A/T-rich

-satellite DNA, spanning 15 million
base pairs.

Which of the following describe centromeric sequences in humans?

It consists of 171 base-pair A/T-rich satellite DNA, spanning 15 million

base pairs.
In dogs, the Fgf4 gene encodes a protein that regulates bone growth and in its normal
chromosomal location, Fgf4 yields dogs with long legs. Which of the following statements
best explains the mechanism leading to a short-legged phenotype in dogs?

The Fgf4 gene is retrotransposed into

the middle of a LINE that contains
mutated regulatory sequences that give
abnormal expression of Fgf4.

The function of telomeres is

to ensure chromosome replication and

maintenance.

If a human gene is found to contain five introns, the mature mRNA encoded by that gene
would have how many exons?

There could be multiple mRNAs that

contain between one and six introns.

Which of the following statements about introns in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae is
true?

A small percentage of S. cerevisiae

genes contain introns, and these introns
are usually located near the beginning of
the gene.

Even though the complete genome is significantly smaller than humans, the flowering plant
26,000
Arabidopsis thaliana has about _______ genes, about the same number as humans have.
In the chromatin around centromeres, nucleosomes are present that have a unique structure
in which the core protein _______ is replaced by _______ and this variant of the
nucleosome is required for protein assembly at the kinetochore.

histone H3; CENP-A

The human genome is distributed among _______ chromosomes.

23

A centromere is a region of the chromoso me that

plays a critical role in ensuring the

correct distribution of duplicated
chromosomes to daughter cells during
mitosis.

Which of the following statements about introns is true?

They are part of a gene, but they are

absent from the corresponding mRNA.

Which of the following transposable elements accounts for ~21% of the human genome?

Long interspersed elements (LINEs)

Which of the following statements about LINEs is false?

Mutations induced by LINEs are

exclusively harmful.

Which of the following statements best describe the mechanism of action of miRNAs in
blocking expression of proteins?

The single-stranded miRNA, in

association with the RISC complex,
bind to the complementary sequence in
the 3 UTR of mRNAs, blocking
translation and inducing degradation of
the mRNA.

A pseudogene is a

gene that arose through gene

duplication, but by acquiring mutations
became nonfunctional.

A mutation in the leucine zipper of a transcription factor would directly prevent

interaction with other transcription

factors in forming hetero- and

homodimers.
Which of the following is not involved in relieving transcriptional repression imposed by
chromatin?

DNA methylation

The lac operon in E. coli is regulated by lactose, which

inactivates a repressor of transcription.

E. coli preferentially utilizes glucose for energy. However, in the absence of glucose, genes
that can metabolize alternative sugars are activated. Low glucose

elevates cAMP through adenylyl cyclase

that binds to and activates CAP to
effectively increase transcription rates of
genes that metabolize alternative sugars.

Which of the following best describes the ability of an enhancer to mediate transcription
from very distant sites?

Looping of the DNA can occur,

allowing the transcription factor to get
into the proximity of the RNA
polymerase.

Which of the following is not involved in the tissue-specific expression of the

immunoglobin (Ig) heavy-chain gene?

RNA polymerase II

Suppose that a gene has three exons and two introns in the following order:

5-exon 2 exon 1-3

Which of the following both stabilizes and increases the efficiency of translation of an
mRNA?

Addition of a 7-methylguanosine cap

Which of the following statements about transcription of ribosomal RNA is false?

TBP binds the TATA sequences in the

promoter of the ribosomal gene.

The ribosome comes to a UAA, UAG,

Which of the following statements about transcriptional termination in prokaryotes is false? or UGA stop codon and transcription
ceases.
Which of the following is not an example of a transcription factor DNA-binding domain?

Acidic

Which of the following experimental approaches is least likely to be used in identifying

transcription factor binding sites?

Northern blotting

Which of the following is not part of the transcription complex?

RFC

A yeast mutant shows decreased expression of the 5.8S rRNA, the 5S rRNA, and proteinencoding mRNAs. In which of the following might the mutation lie?

TATA-binding protein (TBP)

A ribozyme is defined as an enzyme

in which an RNA molecule is

responsible for the catalytic activity.

In prokaryotes, factors are necessary for

specific binding to certain promoters.

According to the central dogma of molecular biology, transcription of genetic information

occurs via

DNA-dependent RNA synthesis.

Which of the following statements about cis-acting elements is true?

a. They are specific DNA sequences that

control the transcription of adjacent
genes. b. Various proteins specifically
recognize and bind to these cis-acting
sequences. c. They are utilized by both
prokaryotes and eukaryotes.

Glucose repression (or catabolite repression) is mediated by several positive transcriptional

control mechanisms. Which of the following is not one of those mechanisms?

cAMP-activated CAP transcribes genes

that metabolize lactose.

A reporter gene is used to

identify regulatory sequences from the

upstream regions of other genes.

Which of the following statements about translational initiation is false?

a. In prokaryotes, ribosomes often bind

the mRNA and can scan 5 or 3 until
recognizing a Shine-Dalgarno sequence.

Protein phosphatases

catalyze the removal of phosphate

residues from proteins.

The primary function of rRNAs in the ribosome is

to catalyze peptide bond formation.

Which of the following is not a common lipid modification to proteins?

Glycosylation

Which of the following is not associated with translational regulation?

Autolytic degradation of the mRNA by

folding back on itself

A proteasome is a

multisubunit protease complex that

degrades proteins marked for
destruction.

The initiator codon in prokaryotes is

recognized via the Shine-Dalgarno

sequence.

The function of aminoacyl tRNA synthetases is to

covalently attach amino acids to their

corresponding tRNA molecules.

Which of the following statements regarding tRNAs is false?

tRNAs differ in sequence only at the

anticodon.

The proteins shaped like a double chamber that are involved in protein folding are called

chaperonin proteins.

The first amino acid of eukaryotic polypeptides is

methionine.

Ferritin expression is stimulated by iron because iron

stimulates the dissociation of a

translational inhibitor from the ferritin
mRNA.

The half-lives of proteins in the cell vary widely, ranging from

minutes to days.

Antibiotics are medications that inhibit the growth of bacteria. Many target the process of

a. Inhibition of translational initiation b.

protein synthesis in the bacterial cell. In the developing of an antibiotic, which of the
following would be an effective strategy or target for the drug?

Induction of premature polypeptide

chain termination c. Inhibition of
aminoacyl tRNA binding

Which of the following statements about the attachment of amino acids to tRNAs is false?

The amino acid is first joined to AMP,

forming an aminoacyl AMP
intermediate.

Which of the following is an example of posttranslational modification?

a. Glycosylation b. Proteolysis c.
Palmitoylation

Signal sequences are sequences of hydrophobic amino acids that target membrane
translocation. Signal sequences are found

at the amino terminus of the secreted

protein.

Which of the following processes does not require the assistance of chaperones?

Protein transport into the nucleus

Which of the following statements about translational regulation of ferritin is false?

The iron response element is a unique

sequence of amino acids near the amino
terminus of the growing polypeptide.

cAMP activates cAMP-dependent protein kinase by

binding regulatory subunits and

inducing their release from the catalytic
subunits.