Cytochrome Dna Essay

Faith and Surovell hypothesize a statistical analysis will uncover whether a temporally spread out extinction or a quick extinction killed North America’s Pleistocene mammals, a debate that has split paleontologists and archaeologists into two diametrically opposed sides for years. (Faith and Surovell, 2009). The debate on the extinction method has been heated due to the absence of fossil records of 19 of the 35 genera (Faith and Surovell, 2009). Faith and Surovell test whether finding only 16 genera in the fossil record in the terminal timeframe (between 12,000 and 10,000 radiocarbon years ago or between about 11,800 - 9,400 B.C.) is a result of a sampling error, or an extinction happening over a long period of time (Faith and Surovell, 2009).

Recently, DNA testing has been employed to create a genetic database of endangered animal species. Using this information, scientists have even cloned animals.

This paper explores the history and some interesting facts about DNA. The last couple centuries have seen an exponential growth in our knowledge of DNA. The history of the DNA can be traced back to multiple devoted scientist. This article attempts to summarize, and review the basic history of DNA while providing some fascinating information about it.

Recent evidence suggests that whales may not have always inhabited the oceans. Bones of an ancient ancestor of modern day whales, the Basilosaurus, were discovered in Pakistan that suggest whales evolved from a wolf-like creature. This genus of an early whale lived 34-40 million years ago in the late Eocene. These fossils show many different features in common with both modern day whales and modern day land mammals. Since the discovery of these bones, many other evidences show that whales are a likely descendant of the Basilosaurus through many different ways, such as embryologic comparison and DNA testing. Whales aren’t the only suspected descendants

Evolutionary origins of the eastern wolves have been a topic of debate among scientists and conservationists for many years, whether their evolution is independent of grey wolves and coyotes. Currently, eastern wolves are mainly identified as a subspecies of Grey wolves or as a hybrid, resulting from interbreeding between grey wolves and coyotes. Following the genotypic cluster species concept, this paper identifies eastern wolves (Canis Lycaon) as a distinct species because they show little similarities in genomic data with the gray wolves and coyotes and carry Y-chromosome haplotypes that are unique to eastern wolves only.

Tasmanian Devils (Sarcophilus harrisii) are the largest population of marsupials to be found on earth due to the extinction of the Tasmanian tiger (Thylacine). During the 1940’s the Devil species became protected due to large numbers being killed as a form of pest control. The protection of the Tasmanian devil was important as they are crucial to the ecosystem of Tasmania (live science Tasmanian Devils' Mysterious Cancer May Come in Two Varieties). The protection of the devils was necessary as the population have low genetic variability and a history of genetic bottlenecks making them more susceptible to drastic population declines caused by various abiotic

What evidence do you have that the cytochrome c was more pure at the end of the experiment than at the start? Provide more than one line of evidence.

Enzymes are an important part of all metabolic reactions in the body. They are catalytic proteins, able to increase the rate of a reaction, without being consumed in the process of doing so (Campbell 96). This allows the enzyme to be used again in another reaction. Enzymes speed up reactions by lowering the activation energy, the energy needed to break the chemical bonds between reactants allowing them to combine with other substances and form products (Campbell 100). In this experiment the enzyme used was acid phosphates (ACP), and the substrate was p-nitrophenyl phosphate.

During a standard electrophoretic analysis of blood samples from 50 cheetahs, it was found that there was no variation in any of the 52 proteins that were examined, meaning that every one of those cheetahs was electrophoretically identical to every other cheetah tested, (O’Brien et al., 1986). Recently, it has been found that not every cheetah is exactly genetically identical. There is a subspecies of cheetah known as the ‘king cheetah,’ which has a blotched coat pattern that is controlled by a single recessive allele, and there have been variations of mitochondrial DNA, minisatellite and microsattelite DNA found,(Gosling & Sutherland, 2000). This variability that has been discovered is still extremely lower than other related

Several lineages of terrestrial mammals evolved separately to live in marine environments. Although there are several different lineages of marine mammals; many did not originate their marine adaptations from a common ancestor. Different marine mammals do share similarities in morphology and show convergent evolution. The environment has shaped these species in similar ways. Through research, it is known that all mammals, marine or otherwise, share a common ancestor far back in their phylogenetic tree, but some are more closely related than others. These phylogenetic origins of marine mammals can be looked at to compare and contrast the similarities that they share because of a common ancestor and those similarities they share because of convergent

Sea mammals have evolved from land animals to marine animals from their former land ancestors going back as far as the Paleocene Age which occurred 65 million years ago. “The earliest representatives of these

DNA barcoding is an important way to identify organisms. It was first brought up in 2003 by Paul Hebert. He proposed using a short line of DNA from a specific part of the genome to discover and identify new species and differentiate previously known species. This method reads the DNA sequence like a barcode on an item at the grocery store to identify different ones. In most animals, there is a 648 base-pair region in the mitochondrial DNA that is used in DNA barcoding because it is quick and accurate to sequence but contains enough variation to distinguish different species.

Many technological advancements have been made since the discovery of DNA structure and its function in 1953 by James Watson and Francis Crick. Recently, scientists have developed a process called DNA barcoding. The result of DNA barcoding is a database of barcodes of species, made up of a sequence of nucleotides in specific genes. DNA barcoding is a relatively new process that isolates a section of a mitochondrial gene and amplifies it, allowing scientists to sequence the order of nucleotide bases in a certain gene, the organism’s “barcode.” The mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase 1 gene (CO1) is used for animals. It codes for a protein that is a part of the electron transport chain, which is used by every species during oxidative phosphorylation in cellular respiration. Every organism has a unique CO1 gene, but organisms that are within the same families will have more similar genes. Thus, by looking at a sequence of nucleotides in the CO1 gene, scientists can identify and categorize species. Each DNA barcode is registered in the Barcode of Life Database (BOLD) under its respective species, and barcodes are being continually added to this database by scientists on the grassroots level. This allows easy and fast identification of species with no expert knowledge of the species required. The old Linnaean system of taxonomy is now outdated, replaced by this revolutionary new way to identify organisms. Today, scientists are utilizing the DNA barcoding process to answer a

Paul Hebert at university of Guelph introduced DNA barcoding in 2003; scientists from around the globe have initiated an international barcode of life project that aims to establish a barcode for every species on earth to enhance the conservation of biodiversity. For almost all animal groups including many fishes, birds and mammals, agene region that encodes for the mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase 1 is used for identification. This region can be amplified through polymerase chain reaction and is 710bp length. Once amplified, the fragment can be purified and sequenced, giving it a unique barcode, which is deposited, in NCBI gene bank, a public DNA sequences database.

Reliable DNA analysis is also important in the management of wild life. In the case of Wedrowicz, the koala population is being threatened and the need for data on their genetic diversity is of extreme importance. However obtaining the DNA from the koala is not a simple task, this is due to cost, stress, and ethics of capturing a koala. Sometimes the only way to obtain a sample of DNA is by the collection of scats. This means that once the DNA sample is obtained it must be rushed to the lab for extraction while the sample is still fresh. Obtaining this DNA can allow for analysis of population, breeding, and habitat of not only koalas, but of many other mammals (Wedrowicz, Faye, 2013).