LIFE 102: Attributes of Living Systems
Study Guide for Exam 4: November 17, 2023
Chapter 14: DNA: The Genetic Material
1. What is the double helix? What are Chargaff's Rules?
2. Review the structure of DNA and the base pairing rules.
3. DNA strands are complementary and anti-parallel. What do these terms mean?
4. What is semiconservative DNA replication?
5. What are origins of replication?
6. How does strand separation occur? What are the roles of various enzymes and proteins
that participate in strand separation and DNA replication? What is a helicase? DNA
polymerase? Primase? Ligase?
7. What are primers? Why are they necessary? How does RNA play a role in DNA
replication? What are Okazaki fragments?
8. Describe the steps involved in synthesis of new DNA strands. What direction does DNA
replication occur in? What special problems does this pose for replication of the lagging strand?
9. What are telomeres, and what purpose do they serve?
Chapter 15: Genes & How They Work
1. What is the central dogma of molecular biology?
2. What is the template strand of DNA? What is the relationship between DNA and mRNA?
3. What is the sequence of events during gene transcription? Describe events associated
with initiation, elongation, and termination. Which enzyme transcribes DNA into RNA?
4. What are the functions of the promoter and terminator regions on the DNA molecule?
5. What are the steps in translation? How are ribosomes assembled? What is the role of
RNA? (mRNA and tRNA)
6. What is the genetic code? What are codons? Why is the genetic code considered to be
“redundant”? What is a start codon? What are stop codons?
7. Be able to use the table of codons to create a peptide from a nucleotide sequence and to
interpret which codons were necessary for synthesis of a given peptide.
8. Review the structure of a tRNA molecule. Discuss specific regions on the molecule that
are necessary for tRNA function. What is an anticodon?
9. After transcription, the messenger RNA molecule is processed. Why is this necessary?
What are introns and exons? What is splicing?
10. What is a point mutation? What are the ways in which a point mutation can affect
transcription or translation of a gene?
11. How can insertions or deletions of DNA nucleotide base pairs affect translation? What is
a frameshift? What effects do frameshifts have on protein function?
12. What is a silent mutation? What is the difference between a missense mutation and a
nonsense mutation?
