The IIT Madras BS Algorithmic Thinking in Bioinformatics (Algorithmic Thinking in Bioinformatics) Quiz 1 paper sat on 26 Feb 2023, in the January 2023 term, set QPE4: 6 questions for 19 marks in 120 minutes. Every question is below with its answer. Take it as a timed mock test to be marked, or read it through first.
Suppose you fly to an alien world and are surprised to find that life there follows the same central dogma. The difference is that the alien life has 2 distinct nucleotides that make up DNA sequences and a whopping 600 distinct amino acids that make up protein sequences.
What is the minimum length of each codon in this alien species?
7
8
9
10
Correct answer
10
What is the probability that a 4-length path between two nodes in a graph is colorful (i.e., all the vertices in the path get a unique color), when each node in the graph is assigned one of 4 colors uniformly and independently at random?
(Note: Path length is measured as number of nodes in a path.)
1.0
0.049
0.93
0.094
Correct answer
0.094
According to the central dogma of molecular biology, what is the direction of information flow within a cell?
DNA → Protein → RNA
Protein → RNA → DNA
RNA → Protein → DNA
DNA → RNA → Protein
Correct answer
DNA → RNA → Protein
In the color-coding algorithm where each of the n nodes in the input graph is assigned one of k colors, the total number of DP table entries (i.e., DP states denoted W(v,X)) is:
2k
nk
n2k
nnk
Correct answer
n2k
Correct answer: 0.975 (accepted within ±0.025)
Based on the above data, answer the given subquestions.
What is the number of nodes in the De Bruijn graph?
7
8
9
10
Correct answer
7
