A tobacco plant can be made to express a gene from fireflies, resulting in the emission of light. Which of the following is the basis for this phenomenon?

Question

BlackTom AI · Accepted Answer

The question asks about the basis for why a tobacco plant can be engineered to express a firefly gene and emit light. 
Option 1: 'Fireflies and tobacco plants are infected by the same kinds of bacteria.' This is incorrect because bioluminescence via firefly luciferase does not rely on bacterial infection; the light emission comes from the plant expressing the luciferase gene, not from bacteria. 
Option 2: 'Fireflies and tobacco plants share a recent common ancestor.' While all organisms share a distant common ancestor, this statement does not explain the mechanism by which a plant can express a firefly gene to produce light; evolutionary relatedness on this timescale does not by itself enable functional gene expression across such divergent taxa. 
Option 3: 'Most enzymes in fireflies have the same amino acid sequence as the enzymes in tobacco plants.' This is false; firefly luciferase has a different amino acid sequence from plant enzymes. The light production is not due to overall enzyme similarity but due to introducing a specific gene encoding luciferase and expressing it in the plant. 
Option 4: 'Transcription and translation are fundamen-tally similar in both fireflies and tobacco plants.' This is correct because gene expression relies on transcription (DNA to RNA) and translation (RNA to protein), and the core cellular machinery for these processes is conserved across eukaryotes, allowing a plant cell to transcribe and translate a firefly gene to produce the luciferase enzyme that emits light. 
Option 5: 'Chloroplasts can be made to produce light if firefly proteins are injected into plant cells.' This misstates the biology: simply injecting proteins would not enable light production unless the proteins are properly expressed, folded, and functional in the cellular environment; moreover, the question centers on gene expression, not direct protein injection into chloroplasts. 
In summary, the biologically relevant basis is the shared, conserved machinery for gene transcription and translation between fireflies and tobacco plants, which enables the plant to express the firefly luciferase gene and emit light.

A tobacco plant can be made to express a gene from fireflies, resulting in the emission of light. Which of the following is the basis for this phenomenon?Single choice

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