B7 21C (21st Century New GCSE Biology - UNOFFICIAL MARKSCHEME

I see why you think this and to be completely honest I have no idea if that would be right or not.

The reason I understand why you say this is because it would help to see if there's a faulty gene, so if it's not producing insulin the it's still faulty.

However, the gene probe is used in genetic testing e.g. to see if a baby will have cystic fibrosis.

I have no idea though...

Ye but in the end the gene probe only works because its base pair is complementary to the base sequence of a gene/allele. If the probe bases are complementary to the insulin gene then it will always 'stick' to it, no matter the organism as DNA is universal. I guess you could take out the nucleus from a single cell bacteria as easily as from a white blood cell in humans.

It's important to know that the gene probe isn't just used for detecting genetic diseases, it can be used to detect any base sequence of a DNA strand.