Genetics Lab

Purpose: Students will be able to demonstrate their understanding of genetics through

practice problems and applications to real-life scenarios.
Procedure:
1. Taste control paper
2. Taste PTC Paper and record taste
3. Taste Thiourea paper and record taste
4. Taste sodium benzoate
5. Calculate percentage of class that are able to taste for each paper.

Data:
PTC Paper: Had a sanitized, soapy taste to it
T or NT?: TASTED (11/14)

Thiourea Paper: Had a sanitized, soapy taste too!

T or NT?:TASTED (12/14)

SB: Tasted pretty sweet. Not bitter, nor sour.

TASTED

Salty: (1/14)
Sweet:(8/14)
Sour: (2/14)
Bitter(3/14)
NT:(0/14)

Questions:
Q4: From our class results, 78% of the class are able to taste the PTC paper. Which is
approximately the general population.
Q5: Tasters: TT
Nontasters: tt
Q7:Howard’s Mom= Second allele?
Q8: If Jill marries Howard, the probability that their children will be tasters will be a 50/50%
chance. Jill doesn’t carry the gene according to the pedigree, giving her the “pp” allele, as
opposed to Howard, who carries the allele, giving him the “PP or “Pp” allele. But his mother
does not have the dominant allele, giving him “Pp”. And by performing a Punnett square, we can
conclude that it will be a 50/50.

Comprehension Check (Conclusion)

1. Yes, after performing the PTC experiment, I believe that everybody's food preference
might taste different as opposed to people who might not taste the chemical. For
example, PTC is mostly found in foods that are considered to be bitter like Brussel
sprouts, dark chocolate, or the taste of coffee, differentiating for each and every one of
us.
2. Sister A was not able to sense the bitterness as opposed to Sister B, who was able to
taste the concoction. This can be due to the hereditary/lineage of the sisters’ family. For
example, the father/mother can carry the homozygous or heterozygous allele in their
gene, passing it onto the first-born child, and one other parent can possess the
homozygous recessive allele, making the second child possess the recessive allele.