Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology

What is genetic engineering? Cutting DNA from an organism into small fragments and inserting the fragments into a host organism of the same or different species. (AKA: recombinant DNA technology or biogenetics)

What are the uses of Genetic Engineering?

1. Transgenic Organisms An organisms with DNA from another species Glowing tobacco plant (top) Zebra fish with coral and jellyfish genes

Real life uses for Transgenic Organsims. Medicine (producing human growth hormones) Crops (making crops that are insect resistant) Foods (making better tasting/more meaty foods) Crops (making canola that produces high yield oil to make canola oil) Altered bacteria that clean sewage Altered E. coli bacteria to make expensive indigo dye Bacteria that can turn wood chips into paper Vaccines

How do you make a Transgenic Organism?

I. Restriction Enzymes Allow scientist to isolate the foreign DNA. It cleaves the donor DNA at very specific places.

II. Vector The means by which DNA from another species can be carried into a host cell. a. Mechanical vectors—carry DNA into a cell, micropipette or metal bullett b. Biological vectors—virus or bacterial plasmids (small rings of DNA)

Insertion of a Plasmid Vector

III. Joining of DNA If host and foreign DNA have been cleaved (cut) by the same restriction enzyme, the ends can join together.

IV. Gene Cloning The cell will now continue to divide by mitosis and meiosis as if this new foreign DNA (gene) were its own.

2. Cloning Making a genetically identical copy of an organism First and most famous animal cloned was Dolly a sheep in England in 1997. Hope to use to create more an better cows for higher food yields.

Cloning in action.

3. Gel Electrophoresis Seperates DNA by size. A production of patterned fluorescent bands of cleaved DNA in gel. The longer fragments of DNA will move slower than the smaller fragments. These fragment sizes create the banding distances.

Uses of Gel Electrophoresis & DNA Sequencing. DNA fingerprinting to determine a criminal from a crime scene or the parent in a paternity test. Analyze fossil DNA and compare extinct species with living species.

DNA Fingerprint

Human Genome Project

What is it? An international effort to sequence the 35,000-40,000 genes on the 46 human chromosomes – began in 1990, completed in 2003.

Benefits Diagnosis for diseases. (Test amniotic fluid to determine if baby has a genetic disorder) Better drugs Gene therapy—insertion of normal genes into human with diseases to correct the genetic disorder DNA fingerprinting; except for twins, no two people have the same DNA sequence