Question

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O Conjugation is sometimes called "bacterial mating." Is it a form of sexual reproduction? Explain. 63. If you mix together an equal number of F+ and F-cells, how would you expect the proportions to change over time? In other words, do you expect an increase in the relative proportions of F+ or of F-cells? Explain your answer.

Answer 1

2. Sexual reproduction is the process of coming in contact of two different individuals, exchange of their gametes and then fertilization of gametes to form a diploid zygote. The zygote is unique from the parent because it has undergone genetic recombination during the formation.

Bacteria does not show true sexual reproduction but coming together of two different bacterial species for genetic recombination is reported. This process is called as conjugation. By this method, to bacterial species exchange genes located on their plasmid. The contact is made by the formation of conjugation tube.

So it is a type of bacterial mating where the contact is made by conjugation tube and genes are exchanged between two bacterial cells. One of the bacterial cell is having the plasmid whereas other is devoid of it. So the one having the plasmid genes is called as Donor bacterium and transfers one of the copies of this plasmid to the other which is called as recipient bacterium. So to correlate it with sexual reproduction, the donor bacterium is also called as male bacterium and the recipient bacterium is also called as the female bacterium.

3. If we mix F+ and F- cells, then genes from F+ cells will move to F- cell by the process of conjugation. With time, the proportion of F+ cells will increase in the medium.

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