You treat bacteria with an extract made from peanuts that had a fungus growing on it. You then plate 10s of these bacteria onto
a plate that contains penicillin. As a control you leave out peanut extract. You obtain 2 colonies from the control and 3 colonies after treatment with the corn extract. You conclude: A. The peanut extract is not mutagenic.
B. The peanut extract is mutagenic.
C. Penicillin is mutagenic.
D. None of the answers listed above (ABC) are correct.
Mutagens are agents that change genetic material. They multiply the frequency of mutations of an organism over their standard level. The peanut extract that was left as control shows this natural or standard level, but when tenths of these bacteria were put into a plate that contained penicillin, the bacteria colonies increased the frequency of mutations of these bacteria after a determined time.
