Answer:
The correct answer is about 63 fragments.
Explanation:
As mentioned in the question, there are four base pairs in a primer. So, let us consider the sequence of the primer to be 3'-ATGC-5'. Hence, the primer would complementarily combine to the sequence 5'-TAGC-3', and will carry on with the work of adding nucleotides.
Now, the probability of the appearance of TACG, that is, any four base sequence will be,
Probability of T will be 1/4 due to the presence of four different nucleotides.
Similarly, the probability of the bases A, C and G will also be 1/4.
Therefore, the probability of the four base sequence will be 1/4 * 1/4 * 1/4 * 1/4 = 1/256
Now, as the length of the base pairs sequence is 16000, therefore, the number of the given four base sequence will be 16000/256 = 62.5.
Hence, about 63 distinct fragments would be produced.
