Sickle Cell Anemia Lab Report

Sickle cell anemia is disease of the blood caused by a mutation in the beta gene of hemoglobin. Healthy red blood cells are round and able to be moved easily through blood vessels. Sickled red blood cells take the shape of what looks like a crescent moon making travel through blood vessels much more difficult than those of healthy cells. These sickled cells may become stopped up at different points in the blood vessels, blocking other healthy cells to get through causing blood clots and restricting oxygen from circulating through the bloodstream. The mutation that causes the blood cell to deform is when the nucleotide adenine on the regular strand of DNA is substituted for thymine. Symptoms of this disease include pain and swelling. The goal …show more content…
The “c” stands for a cut DNA strand and the “u” stands for a uncut DNA strand. The uncut DNA is the control variable. Next, two point five microliters of of Buffer E and two microliters was added to each tube. After this process one microliter of Bsu36I was added to each tube labeled cut and one microliter of water was added to the uncut labeled tubes. Then, each tube was placed in a centrifuge to spin all of the elements together and collect at the bottom of the tubes. Once each sample has been centrifuged, the tubes are placed in a hot block set at thirty-seven degrees celsius for a time period of forty-five minutes. Following the forty-five minutes, ten microliters of each solution was placed into a lane of agarose gel which had been previously covered with TAE buffer. After waiting twenty-five minutes the gel tray with the solutions placed in each individual lane were placed on a UV trans-illuminator. The significance of this was to collect data by examining the gel to see the DNA which was separated by size. Normal DNA will result in two fragments, sickle cell will not be cut by the Bsu36I, and a carrier for sickle cell will separate into three