Thalassemia is an inherited genetic mutation that limits the production of hemoglobin. I...

Thalassemia is an inherited genetic mutation that limits the production of hemoglobin. If less hemoglobin is produced, there is a shortage of red blood cells (anemia). As a result, the body does not have sufficient amounts of oxygen. In one form of thalassemia, thymine (T) is deleted from section 91 (bold) in the following segment of normal DNA:

a. Write the complementary (template) strand for this normal DNA segment.

b. Write the mRNA sequence using the (template) strand in part a.

c. What amino acids are placed in the beta chain using the portion of mRNA in part b?

d. What is the order of nucleotides after T is deleted?

e. Write the template strand for the mutated DNA segment.

f. Write the mRNA sequence from the mutated DNA segment using the template strand in part e.

g. What amino acids are placed in the beta chain by the mutated DNA segment?

h. How might the properties of this segment of the beta chain be different from the properties of the normal protein?

i. How might the level of structure in hemoglobin be affected if beta chains are not produced?