NEET · BiologyHard

In a hypothetical organism, the DNA polymerase III enzyme has a mutation that increases its error rate to in nucleotides. If a gene is base pairs long, what is the probability that a single replication event produces a perfectly accurate copy of this gene?

  1. A.
  2. B.
  3. C.
  4. D.
Show correct answer & step-by-step solution

Correct answer: A

Solution

  1. The probability of a correct base insertion is .
  2. The probability of a correct gene copy is .
  3. Using the limit as approaches infinity, we set .
  4. The probability is approximately .
  5. Hence the answer is (A).

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