An attribute of growth behavior of eight bacteriophage mutants (1 to 8) is investigated in experiments that establish coinfection by pairs of mutants. The experiments determine whether the mutants complement one another (+) or fail to complement (-). These eight mutants are known to result from point mutation. The results of the complementation tests are shown below.
New mutation 10 fails to complement mutants 1, 4, 5, 6, 8, and 9. Mutant 10 forms wild-type recombinants with mutants 1, 5, and 6, but not with mutants 4 and 8. Mutant 9 and mutant 10 form wild-type recombinants. What kind of mutation is mutant 10? Explain your reasoning.

Question

An attribute of growth behavior of eight bacteriophage mutants (1 to 8) is investigated in experiments that establish coinfection by pairs of mutants. The experiments determine whether the mutants complement one another (+) or fail to complement (-). These eight mutants are known to result from point mutation. The results of the complementation tests are shown below.

Identify the mutants of each gene.

Table showing complementation results of eight bacteriophage mutants in genetics experiments.

New mutation 10 fails to complement mutants 1, 4, 5, 6, 8, and 9. Mutant 10 forms wild-type recombinants with mutants 1, 5, and 6, but not with mutants 4 and 8. Mutant 9 and mutant 10 form wild-type recombinants. What kind of mutation is mutant 10? Explain your reasoning.

Accepted Answer

Hello, everyone and welcome to today's video. So a group of four mutant bacteria and between parentheses, we have P. QR and S was studied for their ability to produce a certain protein. The mutants are known to resolve from different types of mutations. The following table shows the results of the complementation tests between the mutants and these are P QR and S and so we have different complementation tests happening or being crossed with them. So a new mutant which is designated T fails to complement mutants P Q and R but complements mutant S while tira cominin form in between mute and T and mutations Q and R but not between T MP. What kind of mutation is seen in Mutt as answer choice A we have deletion mutation as answer choice B, we have insertion mutation as answer choice C, we have a nonsense mutation and as answer choice D, we have frame shift mutation. Now, in order to solve this problem, we need to first realize that because the new mutant C fails to complement Mutton's P Q or R, this means that this is happening in the same biological pathway us P Q and art and in a different biological pathway as s once we've established that we need to understand that wild type recommences are going to form between T Q and R, but they're not going to form between T and P. And this is suggesting that a, a point mutation is resulting in a change in a single nucleotide base causing a single amino acid to be incorporated into the protein causing what we're seeing here in the table. Now, because of this, because we have a point mutation, we need to look at the answer choices and select what point mutations are present. And as it turns out, there's only one point mutation which is going to be the nonsense mutation or answer choice. C. So based on this given option, the most likely type of mutation in mute and T is this nonsense mutation, which is a type of mutation where a premature stop codon is introduced into the DNA sequence due to a single change in a nucleotide. So answer choice C nonsense mutation is going to be the final answer to your question. I really hope this helped you. And I hope to see you on the next one.

Verified video answer for a similar problem:

Key Concepts

Complementation

Point Mutation

Recombinant Formation