Genetic Engineering Essay Research Paper Genetic EngineeringBioengineering

Genetic Engineering Essay, Research Paper

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: