A 54-year-old male presents with severe pain and swelling in his right

great toe. After running several tests, the patient is diagnosed with gout

and begins treatment with allopurinol.

Which pathway is inhibited by allopurinol?

A 60 year old male survivor of a heart attack shows elevated blood levels of LDL and triacyglycerides. A physician prescribes statins in addition to other medication.

Which statement best describes the reason statins are used to treat high blood levels of cholesterol?

A 40 year

old man is participating in a hunger strike to protest against the new measures

taken by the government. As a result he does not consume any of the essential

amino acids. In addition to being part of proteins, many amino acids are also

precursors of important biomolecules such as serotonin.

Which of the

following pairs of amino acid - vitamin pairs are essential for the biosynthesis

of serotonin?

A 43-year-old woman presents to her primary care physician because her great toe is swollen an extremely tender and she is diagnosed with gout. 

 Which metabolite is increased in gout and by what pathway is it produced?

A molecular biologist performed a polymerase chain

reaction (PCR) experiment and obtained the PCR product shown below in Figure 2.

Enzyme X cleaves this PCR product at the two positions indicated by the red

arrows. The asterisk indicates the location where a DNA probe has been designed

for usage in a Southern blot.

Figure 2: Schematic diagram of a PCR product.

How many bands will appear on a Southern blot after

the PCR product is cleaved?

A molecular biologist working on the sequencing of the PEX5 gene from a patient with Zellweger syndrome (ZS) obtained the following results:

Which organelle(s) is(are) defective in patients

with ZS?

A molecular

biologist working on the sequencing of the PEX5 gene from a patient with

Zellweger syndrome (ZS) obtained the following results:

What type of

mutation is found in this patient?

α-linolenic acid is an ω-6 fatty acid, essential for human health.

A one day old girl tested positive for phenylketonuria during the standard neonatal screening. DNA sequencing revealed that the patient has a mutation on the promoter region of the phenylalanine hydroxylase gene which is defective in phenylketonuria.

Which of the following techniques can be used in order to investigate the effects of this mutation on the mRNA expression levels of this gene?