Self Assessment Answer # 8
for Lesson 19

by Dr Jamie Love Creative Commons Licence 2002 - 2005

The complement to CTATGTT it AACATAG. I hope you got that right.

Let's take a look at that with the directions written in 5'AACATAG3'

That does not look at all correct - but it is. You can check it by writing one of the sequences in the wrong direction.
5'CTATGTT3'
3'GATACAA5'

Notice that by placing the 5' and 3' into the lettering I have "broken the rule" about which direction we write in but I am doing this just to check my answer (and you should too).

By the way, I asked you to try this sequence (CTATGTT) because that is the common wrong answer from the previous question. So, if there was any doubt in your mind, you can see that its complementary sequence is not at all what you may have thought (from the previous question).

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