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Issues in Biotechnology
Study Guide for Quiz 06 on Lectures 13-15
2.1 Agricultural Biotechnology and Bioenergy
13. How It Is Done & How It Is Used
14. Issues and Controversies in Agricultural Biotechnology
15. Energy and the Future of Humanity:
Biofuels for the Future- Renewable Resources and Independence from
Foreign Oil and the Carbon Cycle
BCH 190
1. In the 1860s Gregor Mendel discovered “factors” that determined
inheritance of traits in plants (notice how many great discoveries appear
first from work on plants) and by 1906 Thomas Hunt Morgan showed
that ‘genes’ are the “factors” that Mendel had discovered, and that
genes are located on chromosomes. Then in 1944 Oswald Avery showed
that genes are made of DNA! (We have come a long way). We now know
all the genes in
a. humans and chimpanzees
b. all of these examples, and more
c. mice, rats, and dogs
d. rice and corn plants and fruitflys
e. puffer fish and cow peas
2. Life took about 4 billion years to reach its present level of complexity.
To maintain it, life must always come from life, replicating its DNA and
passing that information, however changed, from generation to
generation. This inevitable conclusion comes from our modern
understanding of the key role played by
a. still mysterious and as yet unknown supernatural forces
b. the threat of toxic substances in our environment
c. the spontaneous generation of new living organisms
d. the information living things store within their DNA
e. the role of computers in biotechnology
3. Former President Jimmy Carter has said that ‘Biotechnology is not a
threat…starvation is.’ Vitamin A deficiencies are responsible for a
million lives a year globally and many of those are in developing
countries where the main staple is rice. Dr. Ingo Potykus of Switzerland
genetically modified rice to accumulate high levels of beta carotene the
natural precursor for vitamin A. Some have argued that it would be
unethical to deny this population of such a useful tool to alleviate
suffering. This variety is known as:
a. Terminator rice
b. Golden rice
c. Fried rice
d. Green Revolution rice
e. The Gold Revolution
4. While it has not yet been done for all organisms on earth, based on
what we now know, it is possible to clone any gene from almost any
living organism, transfer that gene into another unrelated organism,
and make the same protein coded for by that gene. This means that the
genetic code is a universal language for life on this planet.
a. this statement is generally true
b. this statement is generally false
c. there is still not enough information
d. this is confidential information held only by the government
e. it is impossible to use this information to create bioweapons
5. Plants that have been genetically modified for crop improvement,
including corn, canola, cotton, and soybean in the US, have been widely
adopted by farmers to reduce input costs and pesticides. The products
from these plants
a. have been shown to be dangerous to humans
b. are currently used for livestock feed only
c. have been included in many food products for years now without substantiated
affect on human health
d. are pending approval by the FDA but are expected to be on the market for the
first time soon
e. having been promoted by the Agricultural-Industrial complex and must be
unhealthy
6. The first commercially available genetically engineered plant was
released in 1992. It was
a. a slow ripening tomato called the Flavr Savr
b. a glow in the dark daisy with a GFP protein from fluorescent jellyfish
c. high vitamin A rice called Golden Rice
d. a corn plant with resistance to the herbicide Round-Up
e. a seedless watermelon made by radiation
7. Gene constructs can be readily made in the laboratory by fusing
together DNA segments from different sources. If done correctly, these
cloned constructs can be delivered into plants where there will be stably
integrated into the plant’s DNA and expressed to confer new and useful
traits. Gene constructs can be introduced into plants by
a. microprojectile bombardment (also known as the ‘gene gun’ or biolistics)
delivers DNA by coating small particles of gold with the vector and shooting
them into plant cells
b. all of the examples shown have worked
c. Microinjection: by using a small needle to inject DNA directly into plant cells
d. Agrobacterium tumefaciens: a bacteria that acts as a natural gene transfer
vector to deliver DNA into plants
e. osmotic or electric shock treatments
8. The segments of DNA that we call genes usually code for proteins.
The region of a strand of DNA, which is ‘upstream’ of the coding
sequence either turns on or off the expression of a particular gene.
When we say a gene is ‘on’ we mean that it is making mRNA and that
protein is translated from that mRNA. In humans and in other animals,
there must be eye specific genes, liver specific genes, and genes that are
expressed in all cells. Similarly in plants there must be flower specific
genes, leaf specific genes, root specific genes and so on. These genes
make the proteins that are specific for each function in each tissue.
These ‘upstream’ sequences that regulate cell and tissue specific
expression are called
a. termination signals
b. gigabases
c. transposable elements
d. promoters
e. genomic shock absorbers
9. Agricultural Biotechnology:
a. is a new form of organic agriculture that uses synthetic manure with the
promise of providing safer and more healthy plants
b. includes domestication, varietal selection, genetics, wide crosses, mutagenesis,
and gene transfer for the overall goal to help produce new varieties of crop plants
that are useful for people
c. a unnatural process for developing genetically modified (GM) plants that have
been shown to cause birth defects in humans
d. is too recent of a technology to be of practical use, but has great promise for
the future to aid in global food resources
e. has now been banned by all US farmers and grocery sores as inherently unsafe
10. It is now possible to make gene constructs in the laboratory by
fusing together DNA segments from different sources. If done properly,
these cloned constructs can be expressed in plants to confer new and
useful traits. For example, genes that encode proteins from a bacteria
can be moved into plants to make them resistant to pests without using
pesticides. This process of plant improvement has been
a. only theoretical but hotly debated for over ten years
b. only accomplished by big companies but not by academic labs
c. applied widely and successfully in US agriculture for over fifteen years
d. has been shown to be fraudulent and dangerous to people and livestock
e. shown to be a link in the rising incidence of autism in the US
11. It is interesting that because all life on this planet uses information
in the form of either DNA, RNA or both, and that the same bases are
used, and that the genetic code is almost always the same using three of
those bases to code for one of twenty amino acids…because now genes
can be cloned and moved from one organism into another and the
foreign gene will make the same protein! So a gene from a bacteria can
be expressed in plant to make the same protein that was made in the
bacteria. The process of taking a gene from one species and expressing
it in the genome of another species is called
a. transgenics
b. eugenics
c. carcinogenics
d. pharmacogenomics
e. agricultural forensics
12. It is interesting that all life on this planet uses information in the
form of either DNA, RNA or both; that the same bases are used; and,
that the genetic code is almost always the same using three of those
bases to code for one of twenty amino acids. (And it’s the same twenty
amino acids!) It is also interesting that RNA uses the base Uracil in
place of Thymine. The sequence GATTACA in DNA will code for what
sequence in RNA?
a. CUAAUGU
b. TATTACU
c. CTAATCT
d. TGCCUAG
e. TUGGTCU
13. Nearly all the plants available in US grocery stores do not grow in
‘the wild’. Most of our cultivated plants are the result of intensive
human intervention over many generations to select for desirable traits,
and most of these plants would not even exist without humans. Hybrid
corn was first commercialized on a large scale in the US in the 1930s
and now, because of vastly improved yields these varieties dominate the
$52 billion yr corn crop in the US. Hybrid corn
a. is a ruse of the large seed companies to control the corn seed industry
b. was first developed in the Fertile Crescent of Mesopotamia ~10,000 yrs ago
c. is the product of conventional plant breeding involving the use of controlled
crosses and in some plants, like corn, by developing inbred parental lines
d. is the product of genetic engineering by insertion of foreign DNA
(E) is all GMO
14. There is an interesting parallel between the language of DNA and
our own written language (Is this a coincidence?). A nucleotide is like a
letter (not much information); a triplet, or codon, is like a word (slightly
better, a word has meaning); a gene, then would be like a paragraph
and a chromosome would be like a one volume of a set of encyclopedias
with the whole set being like the entire genome. A genetic construct used
for crop improvement is
a. like a foreign language that can not be read, giving only garbled protein
sequences that may have catastrophic consequences on plant and human health
b. like a cut and paste document; it is a synthetic sequence of DNA that will be
transcribed into RNA and will be translated into a particular protein that
corresponds to the sequence of the gene.
c. like a political manifesto on agriculture for the future declaring all the good it
can do for the world under false pretenses that have yet to be realized by the real
world of commercial agriculture production by large companies
d. like bad poetry, eventually to be discarded from the genome; introduced genes
are not inherited by the next generation
e. like putting caustic substances into food for cosmetic purposes
15. Genetically engineered crops are now grown:
a. in agricultural production in many countries across the world
b. only in greenhouses because of gene containment issues
c. in large meafarms only in the US
d. all across Europe
e. only in high security laboratories owned by the military
16. GMO is
a. a designation used by a group called ‘Germplasm Movement from Origins’
that tracks the origins of first crops domesticated by humans ~10,000 yrs ago
b. a designation for 'Genetically Modified Organism' indicated the use of
transgenics
c. the acronym for militant ‘Global Motivation Organization’, a nongovernmental organization that tracks the release of genetically engineered plants
as something they think is harmful to the environment, health and safety of all US
citizens
d. a crop that is 'Grown More Organically' as a designation of safety used by the
USDA for crops that have a clear environmental and health advantage
e. a type of IED developed by the US specifically for use in Iraq and Afghanistan
to control the production of Opium poppies
17. “Ordinary Tomatoes Do Not Contain Genes, while Genetically
Modified Ones Do”
a. this statement is true, referring only to agriculturally derived crops
b. this is proprietary information held by large companies
c. there is still not enough information
d. this statement is false, all tomatoes contain genes whether they are genetically
modified or not
18. The sequence of DNA that is called a gene codes for a protein using
DNA’s four letter code. Three bases will code for one of twenty amino
acids. When a gene is expressed, messenger RNA is transcribed from
the DNA template and translated into a protein in the cytoplasm. If a
single base in the sequence is missing, this mutation could
a. change the sequence of amino acids in the protein and have a catastrophic
effect on the organism, be benign, or at times, be beneficial
b. change the sequence of amino acids in the protein which always has a positive
effect on the organism in its present environment
c. always have negative effects as shown in biotech crops
d. will always have no effect, and hence is good to use in the development of
agricultural crops
e. cause cancer in animals that eat them, as shown in experiments on mice eating
the products of agricultural biotechnology
19. The four major crops that have been genetically modified and
constitute the majority of GM crops that are currently on the market
are:
a. squash, beets, avocado, carrots
b. alfalfa, sugar cane, wheat, sweet potato
c. corn, canola, cotton, soybean
d. corn, wheat, cassava, cranberries
e. switchgrass, garlic, cotton, lettuce
20. Genetic engineering of crop plants is controversial because:
a. so many people have died or become sickened as a consequence of eating
them
b. they have been shown to be massively destructive to the environment when
the genes they contained are transferred from plants to the insects that feed on
them
c. cloned DNA is used to create them and people are uncertain about the process
d. big business has consistently lied and misled the public about their safety
e. they have been shown to cause heart disease in mice, humans and primates
21. GMOs have been shown to cause long term negative health
problems in humans.
a. True
b. False
c. Inconclusive; there have been no long term studies of their affect on any
animals
22. What feature(s) of a DNA fragment causes it to move through a gel
during electrophoresis?
a. the molecular weight (size) of the fragment electrical charges of its phosphate
groups
b. its nucleotide sequence alone
c. the hydrogen bonds between the base pairs in DNA
d. its double helix structure
e. none of these answers are correct
23. After a gel electrophoresis procedure is run, the pattern of bands in
the gel show:
a. the order of bases in a particular transgene
b. the presence of various-sized fragments of DNA
c. the order of genes along a particular chromosome
d. the exact location of a gene in a genomic library
e. none of these answers are correct
24. The sugars derived from corn and sugar cane have been widely used
to make:
a. liquid jet fuel
b. natural gas and hydrogen
c. electricity when used with the nuclear power from spent reactor rods
d. bioethanol
e. none of these answers are correct
25. The majority of climate scientists believe that current trends in
climate change are:
a. a natural occurrence that routinely happens on earth routinely but not connected
to atmospheric CO2 concentration
b. anthropogenic, that is caused by humans' release of CO2 and other
greenhouse gases
c. the result of CO2 that comes plant derive respiration from trees
d. entirely the result of recent sun flares, such as the cause of the dinosaur
extinctions
e. none of these answers are correct
26. Bioethanol made from corn is currently a renewable energy resource
of interest for road fuel largely because:
a. it is carbon negative, thus helping to control or diminish greenhouse gas
emissions
b. corn is cheap to grow and does not require many inputs or water
c. it is a reliable resource readily produced in the US and the technology to
produce ethanol from corn is well known
d. grain corn produced only as livestock feed (poultry, cattle and pork )is not a
human food source in the US
e. none of these answers are correct
27. Brazil is nearly independent from foreign oil for road
transportation. In a project started over fifteen years ago, Brazil uses
ethanol derived from the fermentation of what crop?
a. soybeans
b. pineapples
c. switchgrass
d. bamboo
e. sugar cane
28. Climate change is now well documented. The Earth is warming.
CO2 concentrations have also risen concomitantly with the burning of
fossil fuels and rising population. Some propose that that this is a part
of normal fluctuations in surface temperatures while others cite
evidence for anthropogenic impacts, such as greenhouse gases like CO2
(And others argue that it doesn’t matter what the cause is, the earth is
warming). As a reason to support the production of biofuels, which
biological reaction would be useful for directly removing large amounts
of CO2 from the atmosphere?
a. respiration
b. fermentation
c. digestion
d. photosynthesis
e. DNA replication
29. Biodiesel can be readily made directly from:
a. nuclear waste
b. wind turbines
c. cellulosic and oil crops
d. tidal power
e. solar panels
30. Bioethanol can be readily made from:
a. nuclear waste
b. wind turbines
c. cellulosic and oil crops
d. tidal power
e. solar panels
31. Renewable liquid bioenergy from dedicated nonfood energy crops,
such as switchgrass, poplar trees, and other biomass feedstocks:
a. is a good idea and not currently possible but being researched in the US
b. is not beneficial to the environment, since it will consume valuable
arable lands and other agricultural resources
c. generates too much CO2 to be beneficial to changing greenhouse gas
emissions
d. may help reduce US dependency on foreign oil
e. will most likely never compete with petroleum products
32. The US consumes more energy per capita, (27% of the world
resources are used by 0.5% of the world population) than any other
country in the world. It is said that the world cannot afford two United
States. Which organization received a Nobel prize
for their contributions to the data and scientific literature that supports
the observations and predictions for global Climate Change for
a. The National Rifle Association for their research on the contributions
of lead to the environment through shooting ranges
b. Greenpeace for contributions toward the limitations of the use of genetic
engineering to limit progress on the development of GMO crops that can be used
for biofuels
c. The Nature Conservancy for the promotion and restoration of greenspaces in
America with support from the Bush administration
d. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for assessing the scientific,
technical and socio-economic information relevant for the understanding of the
risk of human-induced climate change.
e. No group has yet to receive a Nobel Prize for work on climate change since
climate change has not been conclusively proven
33. Most of the plants we eat as fruits, vegetables, and grains:
a. grow in the wild, but do better under agricultural situations
b. do not occur in the wild, but have been developed exclusively by
humans through selection and domestication
c. are harmful to humans because domestication has increased their
allergenicity
d. have been genetically modified using transgenics
e. have been robbed of their basic nutritional value compared with their
wild relatives.