Nucleotides can be radiolabeled before they are incorporated into newly forming dna and can therefore be assayed to track their
incorporation into dna. In a set of experiments, a student research team used labeled thymidine nucleotides and introduced these into a culture of dividing human cells. Which of the following questions might be answered by such a method?.
The four nitrogenous bases that are present in DNA are adenine, guanine, thymine and cytosine. These nucleotides can be radiolabelled before the new DNA forms and the composition of specific nucleotide of DNA can be estimated.
During the experiment, research team found that the incorporation of radioactive nucleotides composition increase after the introduction of pathogen in the culture. This means that the cell starts producing more number of cell to fight against the pathogen. The infection of pathogen is mainly responsible for the division of lymphocytes more rapidly.
