Essay/Term paper: Genetic engineering

Essay, term paper, research paper:  Science

Genetic Engineering


Bioengineering, or genetic engineering is an altering of genes in a particular
species for a particular outcome. It involves taking genes from their normal
location in one organism and either transferring them elsewhere or putting them
back into the original organism in different combinations. Most biomolecules
exist in low concentrations and as complex, mixed populations which it is not
possible to work efficiently. This problem was solved in 1970 using a bug,
Escherichia coli, a normally innocuous commensal occupant of the human gut. By
inserting a piece of DNA of interest into a vector molecule, a molecule with a
bacterial origin of replication, when the whole recombinant construction is
introduced into a bacterial colonies all derived from a single original cell
bearing the recombinant vector, in a short time a large amount of DNA of
interest is produced. This can be purified from contaminating bacterial DNA
easily and the resulting product is said to have been "cloned".

So far, scientists have used genetic engineering to produce, for example: -
improve vaccines against animal diseases such as footrot and pig scours; - pure
human products such as insulin, and human growth hormone in commercial
quantities; - existing antibiotics by more economical methods; - new kinds of
antibiotics not otherwise available; - plants with resistance to some pesticides,
insects and diseases; - plants with improved nutritional qualities to enhance
livestock productivity.

Methods:

- Manipulation of the Gene pool, which is related to Hybridization which is the
breeding of species but the species are not the same but they are related.

- Chain reaction is the production of many identical copies of a particular DNA
fragment.

- The utility of cloning is important, it provides the ability to determine the
genetic organization of particular regions or whole genome. However, it also
facilitates the production of naturally-occurring and artificially-modified
biological products by the expression of cloned genes. - Insertion of selectable
marker genes to pick out recombinant molecules containing foreign inserts -
Removal or creation of useful sites for cloning - Insertion of sequences which
not only allow but greatly increase the expression of cloned genes in bacterial,
animal and plant cells. - The ability to take a gene from one organism (e.g. man
or tree), clone E. coli and express it in another (e.g. a yeast) is dependent on
the universality of the genetic code, i.e. the triplets of bases which encode
amino acids in proteins: