https://pages.htgaa.org/2026a/jessee-svoboda/labs/week-12-lab-bioproduction/index.htmlContents Post-lab questions - all students Post-lab questions - Committed Listeners Post-lab questions (All students) Which genes when transferred into E. coli will induce the production of lycopene and beta-carotene, respectively? Lycopene is produced from farnesyl diphosphate with the enzymes encoded by crtE, crtB, and crtL. Then to make beta-carotene, they need the additional enzyme encoded by crtY. Why do the plasmids that are transferred into the E. coli need to contain an antibiotic resistance gene? The plasmids need an antibiotic resistance gene to ensure that the plasmid is retained. The plasmid is an extra metabolic cost for the cells to maintain, and culturing in antibiotics (that the plasmid has a resistance gene for) provides the pressure to keep and express the plasmid. What outcomes might we expect to see when we vary the media, presence of fructose, and temperature conditions of the overnight cultures? With different culturing conditions, the cells might grow slower or faster, or produce more or less of the goal compounds. Generally describe what “OD600” measures and how it can be interpreted in this experiment. OD600 is the measurement of optical density at 600 nm, which is generally used as a proxy for cell density because cells block light passing through the spectrophotometer. In this experiment, it can be interpreted into how well the cells grow. What are other experimental setups where we may be able to use acetone to separate cellular matter from a compound we intend to measure? i’m not sure what this question is asking. like what other bioproduceable compounds are acetone-soluble? Why might we want to engineer E. coli to produce lycopene and beta-carotene pigments when Erwinia herbicola naturally produces them? E. coli grows faster and is better studied, which means we have more genetic tools available to manipulate E. coli compared to E. herbicola and we know more about the metabolism so we might make more informed choices for metabolic engineering. Post-lab questions (Committed Listeners) Let’s get in touch with our metabolic pathway.Hugoen