The ligation you carried out in Laboratory 3 can result in a number of plasmids, but none of these have been replicated in a bacterial cell. What configurations -- supercoiled , nicked circle, and multimer - might the ligated plasmids have ?

Nicked circle is the reason.

Explanation:

During recombinant DNA technology the gene of interest is ligated to plasmid DNA by excision with molecular scissors or endonuclease enzyme and ligated with enzyme ligase.

Enzyme ligase catalysed by ATP seals the nicks by making phosphodiester bonds in the ds or ss DNA and release of ADP.

The ligation in the plasmid did not occur properly hence the replication is interrupted  hence no new plasmids with gene of interest replicated in the ligation carried out.

the answers are a and c