Question

1. You are studying phage transduction and trying to deliver a kanamycin resistance gene from one strain of bacteria to another using phage. The kanR gene is FAR away from the lambda prophage in your bacterium. Choose which type of transduction should you use for your experiment and explain why.

a.     lambda phage, specialized transduction

c.     T4 phage, generalized transduction

c.   A different phage with mitomycin C induction

4. Considering what you learned about the life cycle of SARS-2 / COVID-19, name one SPECIFIC step of the viral life cycle that could be targeted with an antiviral drug compound or neutralizing antibody and which function, enzyme or structure would be inhibited.

Answer 1

1. Specialized transduction by lamda phage is the best way to introduce "Kan R" gene into another bacterial cell. In specialized transduction the specific gene immediate to the phage DNA will be transduced . But in generalized transduction any part of DNA is which is not specific also transduced. So it is not useful in the transduction of a specific gene.

2. In the life cycle of SARS virus after attaching to a specific cell receptor it enter the cell and the genomic RNA will be released into the host cell . The proteins will be synthesized from RNA and polymerase synthesize sub geomic RNA s finally assembled to form new virions. So the polymerase which is involved in the replication of RNA and the translational protein products are the potential targets for the drugs to be synthesized. The drug which stops the replication by targetting polymerase is the best way to stop the viral replication.