Question

If a few cells are obtained from a site of crime,how will you identify them as plant/animal cell,what technique will you use to identify the person who may be the criminal?

Answer 1

To differentiate plant and animal cells, you can use following steps:

1. Cell wall: plant cell has cell wall, animal cell doesn't.
2. Mitochondria are present in large numbers in animal cell, smaller numbers in plants
3. Centrosomes are present only in animal cell.
4. Plastids present in plants only.

Plant cells are regular shaped, generaly rectangular, animal cell is irregular.

You can use any of the above difference between plant and animal cell, to find out if the cells obtained are plant or animal.

To find criminal, first collect the cells. The cells are collected using special equipment.

Then, we use DNA Fingerprinting. This is a process where, the DNA of cell is extracted. The extracted DNA is analysed, and base pairs are found out. The arrangement of base pair is different for each one. No one has exact same DNA. This collected DNA base pair data, called DNA fingerprint is then compared with DNA fingerprint of suspects. The suspects are those people, who are suspected to have done the crime.

Both DNA samples are analysed. The criminal is the one whose DNA matches with the obtained DNA fingerprint.