1. A. Why does DNA move through an agarose gel?
B. What is the function of the running buffer used during gel electrophoresis?
3. Did all of your PCR's work? If not, what might have gone wrong in your reactions?
4. Based on your results, is it possible to potentially connect any of the suspects to the crime scene? Explain. Can you exclude any suspects?
5. Are any of the suspects heterozygous at this locus ? Which suspects, if any, and how do you know?
6. Are any of the suspects homozygous at this locus? Which suspects, if any, and how do you know?
7. Think back to post lab questions for Part 1 of this lab. You were asked to consider two parents. One parent has 5 repeats at the TH01 locus on both of her homologous chromosomes. The other parent has 10 repeats on both of his.
If you were provided with DNA from each of these individuals, and performed a PCR with primers specific to each end of the TH01 region, how MANY DNA fragments would be generated in the PCR reaction? For the mother? The father?
If you were provided with DNA from a child of theirs, how MANY DNA fragments would be generated in the PCR reaction?
7 Now, in the box provided below, sketch a quick, hypothetical DNA gel that includes these three people's DNA/PCR products. Include a DNA ladder with appropriate/approximate length bands for reference. Label each well and sketch where you would expect to see bands for each individual. (That is, what size fragments would you generate and how many?) Explain how you are able to make this prediction!