A forensic scientist is trying to find out the number of adenine bases in the DNA sample that he obtained from a crime scene.
What can he assume about the number of adenine?
The number of adenine bases will be equal to the number of guanine bases.
The number of adenine bases will be equal to the total of all the other bases.
The number of adenine bases will be equal to the number of thymine bases.
The number of adenine bases will be half of the number of cytosine bases.
1 answer
The forensic scientist can assume that the number of adenine bases will be equal to the number of thymine bases. This is because of the complementary base pairing rule in DNA, where adenine always pairs with thymine and guanine always pairs with cytosine. Therefore, if the scientist knows the number of thymine bases in the DNA sample, they can make a reasonable assumption about the number of adenine bases.
1 answer