You plate out a liquid culture of E. coli on TSA containing…

You plate out a liquid culture of E. coli on TSA containing the antibiotic streptomycin, incubate for 24 hours, and observe a single colony. From this you obtain a pure culture of streptomycin resistant E. coli, which you propagate on TSA with streptomycin in the following weeks. You then inoculate your culture onto TSA without streptomycin and continue propagating it over the coming months on TSA lacking the antibiotic. Months later, you discover your E. coli strain is no longer resistant to streptomycin. Please explain this result: why was your original colony resistant to streptomycin, and why, months later, did you end up with a culture that was not resistant to the antibiotic?

Streptomyces rishiriensis is a Gram positive bacterium that…

Streptomyces rishiriensis is a Gram positive bacterium that produces dark melanin pigments and a number of antimicrobial compounds. You hope to find gene(s) responsible for the production of these melanin pigments. You transform a culture with a plasmid containing a transposon and a kanamycin resistance gene (kanR) and successfully isolate transformed mutants. You grow them in culture and spread them on the surface of multiple TSA plates. Following incubation, you observe mostly dark colonies along with an occasional clearish/white colony. What might best explain the presence of these clearish/white colonies?

Consider the experiment of taking this exam. Suppose we mode…

Consider the experiment of taking this exam. Suppose we model your score for this exam as Y=5X, where X is a discrete uniform random variable over {0,1,…,N}, and N is the total number of questions. Note that X represents a random variable which is the total number of questions you get right. Find

You use replica plating to isolate a culture of an E. coli a…

You use replica plating to isolate a culture of an E. coli auxotroph, unable to grow without tryptophan, from a culture of prototrophs. For a number of months, you propagate your tryptophan auxotroph culture on GSA (glucose salts agar) medium supplemented with tryptophan. One day, you mistakenly transfer some of your strain onto a new GSA plate that does not contain tryptophan. You realize your mistake after you have left the lab for the day and it is too late to correct it. However, when you return following 24 hours of incubation, you discover a few colonies of E. coli growing on the GSA medium. Please explain this result: why were you able to originally obtain a tryptophan auxotroph from a prototroph culture, and why months later did you find E. coli growth on GSA lacking tryptophan?