E.coli with minimal media problem, HELP

[Intr3pid]

Homework Statement

in the picture/attached file

Homework Equations

no equations necessary

The Attempt at a Solution

don't know how to start it off. I know the E.coli strain can't make the 5 compounds and the colonies present indicate which gene it's missing but I don't know how to determine the gene order from the data.

can someone give me a hint, please?

thanks

 

[iansmith]

Can you post the a link to the picture or explained the data?

The attached file is not present.

 

[Intr3pid]

sorry about that, here's the file.

 

[iansmith]

That's classical way to do genetics.

The solution is based on recombination and the chance of unique, double, triple, quadruple, etc, cross-over to occur. In that problem you'll have to assume that only double cross-over occurred. Triple and quadruple are very unlikely and single would destroy the chromosome.

So to start it up, you need to draw a map of all possible gene order (painful task) and look at all the possible location for cross-over and predict the possible recombinant and phenotype.

For example

Donor DNA___A______B______C_________D________E_____
Cross-over_1______2_____3_______4_________5_______6
Recipent____a_______b______c________d_________e______

Possible recombination ABCDE, aBCDE, Abcde, etc

Phenotype: doesn't need any compound, need compound a, need compound bcde, etc

Since all your plate have three amino acid added, you only have to look at recombination that exclude 3 genes / fix two genes.