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------------------------------------------------ If the rate of replication in a particular prokaryote is 900 nucleotides per second, how long would it take a 1.2 million base pair genome to make two copies?

A. 6.67 minutes
B. 2.22 minutes
C. 13.33 minutes
D. 4.44 minutes

Answer :

Final answer:

To replicate a 1.2 million base pair genome twice in a prokaryote with a replication rate of 900 nucleotides per second, it would take 44.44 minutes. This was calculated by multiplying the total number of base pairs by 2 to get the total number of nucleotides needed and then dividing that by the rate of replication.

Explanation:

To calculate the time required for the replication of a prokaryote's genome, we must understand that replication involves adding nucleotides to the DNA strand at a certain rate. Given that the replication rate of this prokaryote is 900 nucleotides per second and the entire genome is 1.2 million base pairs, we can do the following calculation:

Total number of nucleotides to replicate = 1.2 million base pairs x 2 (for both copies) = 2.4 million nucleotides.

Now, to find the time taken, we can divide the total nucleotides by the rate of replication:

Time (seconds) = 2.4 million nucleotides / 900 nucleotides per second.

Time (seconds) = 2666.67 seconds.

To convert seconds into minutes, we divide by 60:

Time (minutes) = 2666.67 seconds / 60 seconds per minute.

Time (minutes) = 44.44 minutes.

Hence, it would take 44.44 minutes to make two copies of a 1.2 million base pair genome at the given rate of replication in a prokaryotic cell.