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Date November 2020 Marks available 1 Reference code 20N.3.SL.TZ0.10
Level Standard level Paper Paper 3 Time zone TZ0 / no time zone
Command term State Question number 10 Adapted from N/A

Question

Aequorea victoria is a jellyfish that produces green fluorescent protein (GFP) which glows in blue light. The gene for GFP has been isolated and can be used as a marker gene. Plants with the gene incorporated glow when exposed to blue light.

[Source: [jellyfish image] Sierra Blakely, Attribution, via Wikimedia Commons.]

[leaves (middle image)] El-Shemy HA, Khalafalla MM, Ishimoto M. The role of green fluorescent protein (GFP)
in transgenic plants to reduce gene silencing phenomena. Curr Issues Mol Biol. 2009;11 Suppl 1:i21–28.
Epub 2009 Feb 2. PMID: 19193961.

[seedlings (right image)] Clark, David & Kim, Joo Young & Cho, Keun Ho & Colquhoun, Thomas. (2019). Strong
Fluorescence Expression of ZsGreen1 in Petunia Flowers by Agrobacterium tumefaciens–mediated Transformation.
Journal of the American Society for Horticultural Science. American Society for Horticultural Science. 144. 405–413.
10.21273/JASHS04776-19. https://journals.ashs.org/jashs/view/journals/jashs/144/6/article-p405.xml.

State the function of a marker gene.

[1]
a.

Describe how genes are inserted into plants by electroporation.

[2]
b.

Describe how an open reading frame (ORF) can be identified.

[2]
c.

Markscheme

indicates successful uptake of recombinant DNA;

a.

a. an electrical field/potential is applied to cells;

b. increases the permeability of the cell membrane (to DNA);

b.

a. can be identified with bioinformatics software / example of software;

b. locate a sequence corresponding to a start codon/ATG (sense strand);

c. read this sequence until a stop codon/TGA/TAG /TAA is reached;

c.

Examiners report

[N/A]
a.
[N/A]
b.
[N/A]
c.

Syllabus sections

Option B: Biotechnology and bioinformatics » Option B: Biotechnology and bioinformatics (Core topics) » B.2 Biotechnology in agriculture
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Option B: Biotechnology and bioinformatics » Option B: Biotechnology and bioinformatics (Core topics)
Option B: Biotechnology and bioinformatics

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