Skip to content
GK24
General ScienceEasy

Dolly, the first mammal cloned from an adult somatic cell, was which animal?

  1. A.A cow
  2. B.A sheep
  3. C.A goat
  4. D.A monkey

Correct answer

B. A sheep

Explanation

The correct answer is B, a sheep. Dolly was a sheep produced at the Roslin Institute in Scotland in 1996 by the technique of somatic cell nuclear transfer, in which the nucleus of an udder cell of one sheep was placed in an egg whose own nucleus had been removed, so the lamb carried the genes of a single parent. Option A is wrong, although cattle have since been cloned, and India has cloned the buffalo at the National Dairy Research Institute at Karnal. Option C is wrong even though a cloned goat has also been produced in India; neither was the first. Option D is wrong because cloned monkeys came much later and by different methods. Keep two names ready for this topic: Ian Wilmut and the Roslin Institute for Dolly, and Garima for the cloned buffalo calf of India.

Read the full article: Biotechnology and Its Applications: Notes and PYQs

View all
Q1.General ScienceEasy

Which enzyme cuts DNA at a specific recognition sequence and is therefore called molecular scissors?

  1. A.DNA ligase
  2. B.Restriction endonuclease
  3. C.DNA polymerase
  4. D.Reverse transcriptase
Show answer
Correct answer: B. Restriction endonuclease

A restriction endonuclease recognises a short palindromic sequence in DNA and cuts both strands there, leaving sticky ends that can pair with another piece cut by the same enzyme; Hind II was the first such enzyme to be discovered and EcoRI from Escherichia coli is the most widely used.

Read the full explanation →
Q2.General ScienceMedium

Which bacterium is used as a natural vector to transfer genes into plant cells?

  1. A.Escherichia coli
  2. B.Agrobacterium tumefaciens
  3. C.Bacillus thuringiensis
  4. D.Rhizobium leguminosarum
Show answer
Correct answer: B. Agrobacterium tumefaciens

This soil bacterium naturally transfers a part of its tumour inducing plasmid, called the Ti plasmid, into the cells of a dicotyledonous plant and causes crown gall disease; genetic engineers disarm the plasmid, insert the gene they want and use the bacterium as a vector, which is why it is…

Read the full explanation →
Q5.General ScienceMedium

Which heat stable enzyme is used in the polymerase chain reaction?

  1. A.Taq polymerase
  2. B.DNA ligase
  3. C.EcoRI
  4. D.Lysozyme
Show answer
Correct answer: A. Taq polymerase

The polymerase chain reaction repeats three steps, denaturation at a high temperature, annealing of short primers and extension of the new strand, so the enzyme must survive near boiling water; Taq polymerase, obtained from the bacterium Thermus aquaticus of hot springs, does exactly that and lets a single DNA segment…

Read the full explanation →