Exam 6: Genetics

A 32-year-old man is recovering from extensive burns.  Fibroblasts near the site of injury actively synthesize precursor mRNA to be used as templates for protein synthesis.  After transcription, extensive processing of the precursor RNA occurs to form the finalized mRNA sequence.  The finalized mRNA then exits the nucleus and undergoes translation by ribosome complexes before being degraded.  Which of the following steps involving the processing and handling of mRNA occurs only within the cytoplasm of cells?

A 24-year-old African American woman comes to the office with her husband for prenatal counseling.  She has a 3-year-old child with sickle cell anemia from a previous marriage, and the child's father died in a car accident.  The patient remarried last year and is interested in having more children.  She and her new husband do not have sickle cell anemia, and the patient's husband has no other children.  However, the patient and her husband are worried that their future children could have sickle cell anemia.  A urine pregnancy test is negative.  Which of the following is the best initial test that can be offered to this couple?

A 65-year-old woman with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and type II diabetes mellitus comes to the emergency department due to profound fevers and malaise.  After initial evaluation, she is hospitalized for septicemia.  Blood cultures plated on lactose-containing media grow rapidly dividing gram-negative bacteria.  Replication of these microbial cells requires synthesis of two daughter strands of DNA using the parent strands as templates.  Which of the following processes will differ the most between the 2 daughter strands formed at each replication fork?