Some Tricky Genetics Problems

(3 pts) A pharoah's tomb contains his body, that of his queen, and those of two grown children and their families. Nearby is another tomb of a lone pharaoh. Because of an ancient insurrection, both tombs, as well as many others, were defaced, erasing a literary account as to which pharoah came first. Using the following DNA fingerprints, determine the order of these two pharoahs.

This is a "maternity test": is the Queen the mother of the lone pharoah or not. If she is, then the lone pharoah ascended the throne after his father, the queen's husband. If she is not the lone pharoah's mother, then he must be the father of the queen's husband. The fingerprints of the two children are superfluous.
(1 pt) On the picture above, circle the one largest molecular weight fragment on the lone pharoah's fingerprint.
(3 pts) Percentage of parental genetic sequences that are shared:
1. Siblings share what percent of their parents' genetic sequence?
2. A mother and father have 16 children (including NO twins, triplets, etc.). Is there a high or low probability that none of the children are genetically identical? How can this be in light or part (a)?
(2 pts) First cousins share what percentage the same genetic sequences?
(2 pts) Half-siblings (half-sisters or half-brothers) share what percentage the same genetic sequences?
(3 pts) A "back cross" such as Grampa and his daughter Edna gave rise to (begot) Mary Edna. Mary Edna shares what percentages with her grandfather and with her mother?
(3 pts) Old Testament genetics! Consider the genetics of the two following Patriarchs when you answer the two questions "c" and "d" at the end. This sort of study is proving very important in paleoanthropological studies today.
1. Given: Isaac's wife was very old and "barren" - despite God's "Covenant" that she would be the mother of the Jewish nation. According to local custom, she provided Isaac with a surrogate mate, by whom Isaac had a son, Esau. One day, the elderly wife told her husband that somehow she was pregnant. She eventually bore Jacob.
2. Given: Jacob married five sisters and had 13 sons and several daughters.
3. Question: If you somehow had samples of tissue from Isaac, Esau, Jacob, and all of Jacob's children, and from those extracted the mitochondrial DNA and fingerprinted them, how many different patterns would you get?
4. Question: Were you to have also separately isolated Y-chromosomal DNA from those same people and fingerprinted them, how many different patterns would you get?
(2 pts) A newspaper society page reported some bad news that was revealed to a group of siblings, who were attending a family reunion. The bad news was that all of the sisters were carriers of a recessive X-linked mutation that, when in the baby, caused miscarriage in the third month of pregnancy. The lab had determined that the faulty X had been contributed by their father. (Change only one word of four or more letters to make this report plausible, and tell why the original report was not only implausibe, but also impossible.)
Do you know your prokaryotes from your eukaryotes? Try this: Which of the following are found in/on an E.coli cell:
nucleus
ribosomes

chloroplasts
flagella

mitochondria
golgi apparatus
1. (5 pts) Here is another lineage from the ancient Egyptians. It centers around Hatshepsut, the only queen to become Pharoah prior to Cleopatra. Briefly: Hatshepsut was the daughter of Pharoah Thutmoses-I and his queen. Several years later her half-brother, Thutmoses-II was born to a royal concubine. When the Pharoah died, Hatshepsut became the contested Pharoah, and to gain further legitimacy for the throne, she married her young half-brother. Thus Hatshepsut took over as reagent until the brother came of age. Furthering her cause for claiming being the true pharaoh, Hatshepsut siezed an opportunity, seduced her brother, and had a baby boy, who was next in line for the throne as Thutmoses-III. Hatshepsut may have murdered her adolescent brother/mate but he was of weak health so he might have died a natural death. Anyway Hatshepsut became reagent of her son. She ordered that she was to be called Pharoah, and that only upon her death would her son become Pharoah. Before Hatshepsut herself died, she erected for herself one of the magnificent mausoleums in the "Valley of the Kings." This is still in good shape today. (As a linkage to other history: it is likely that young Princess Hatshepsut was the one who found a baby in the bullrushes and named him Moses. If she raised him as her own child, she might propel him to be the next pharaoh! But this scheme was discovered when Moses was entering middle age, and he was sent back to make bricks with the other Hebrews. It was to his "brother" Thutmoses-III that Moses said: "Let my people go!" Historians note the military strategic skills possessed by Moses - most likely gained as he was being groomed to be the pharoah prior to his "discovery.") Question: Draw out a gel that would plausibly support the above royal lineage. In the diagram:
  1. squares = male
  2. blackened = a pharoah at sometime during life.
  3. numbers = order of holding the throne.
1. (3 pts) A mother's worst nightmare! Three women were rushed to a small country hospital and gave birth within minutes of each other to babies of the same sex and race. The staff of the small hospital was overwhelmed. Two years later, one of the children required a bone marrow transplant, and mom, dad, siblings, aunts and uncles were tested for compatability. Not a match anywhere - not even close. During a flurry of malpractice lawsuits stating that this child had been carelessly switched in the hospital, DNA profiles were taken of all the mothers and babies born at that time. Place the babies with their true moms, AND because you know the charge on DNA, place a "plus" or "minus" in the circle below the gel to indicate which pole that was nearest on the electrophoresis apparatus.
| TOP OF PAGE | VAST-2001 | Genetic Engineering Home Page |