Chapter 6: "The Mystery of the Saguaro Measles: at Taos"

Quiz #7 Virology 409
05 October 1999 (6 pts)

.....It had been a long morning for Mary Lou's gang to sit and listen to so many people talk about just this one virus. ..They needed a break! They followed Dr. Sagaroff's suggestion and they went with her to a little café in the yuppy town of Taos and then, despite the heat, to see the classic Indian pueblo community there. ..Cheryl and Jason were sitting on a bench beneath a shrub locally called a tree when Cheryl said:.."Ya know, Jason, this might seem odd, but I just had a passing thought - completely unrelated to what we've been seeing. ..Yesterday, we'd been discussing what it might be that triggers the MMV insertion to activate, excise and become vegetative to kill the cells and form the brown spots. ..I'll bet that there some sort of repressor produced by the insert that keeps the MMV 'dormant,' if I may use that word." ..Usually conversations between Cheryl and Jason were one-way. ..While Cheryl thought that this was out of some sort of deference to her being 4 years older, the reason, according to Wilbie, was that Jason was usually overwhelmed by the gene expressions governing Cheryl's morphology. ..But occasionally, academic ideas could distract Jason, as now, so that he could carry on an undistracted and intelligent conversation.

....."If that is true," began the youngster, "one of the MMV-genes must be being transcribed, and we ought to be able to detect the presence of that particular m-RNA coding for repressor."

.....Wilbie wandered by just at that moment, winked at Jason, and asked: .."What's up?" ..Within minutes the threesome had come up with a plan that incorporated some technology they had heard earlier in the day. ..Shown below are what they eventually got for results. ..You are to give a brief protocol as to how they got results that would fit with this graph...This, of course, is the opposite of what you have been doing so far: ..then the protocols were given to you and you had to draw the conclusions; ..here, you have the data, but need to supply the protocols.