11. BIOTECHNOLOGY: PRINCIPLES & PROCESSES
· Biotechnology
is
the technique of using live organisms or their enzymes for products &
processes useful to humans.
· The
European Federation of Biotechnology (EFB) defines Biotechnology as ‘the
integration of natural science and organisms, cells, parts thereof, and
molecular analogues for products and services’.
Biotechnology
deals with:
-
Microbe-mediated
processes (making curd, bread, wine etc).
-
In vitro fertilization
(test-tube baby programme).
-
Synthesis and using of a gene.
-
Preparation of DNA vaccine.
-
Correcting a defective gene.
PRINCIPLES OF BIOTECHNOLOGY
Core
techniques of modern biotechnology
· Genetic
engineering: The technique in which genetic
material (DNA & RNA) is chemically altered and introduced into host
organisms to change the phenotype.
· Bioprocess
engineering: Maintenance of sterile ambience in
chemical engineering processes for growing desired microbe/eukaryotic cell for
the manufacture of antibiotics, vaccines, enzymes etc.
Basic steps
in genetically modifying an organism
a) Identification of DNA with desirable
genes: Traditional hybridisation leads to inclusion and
multiplication of undesirable genes along with desired genes. In genetic
engineering, only desirable genes are introduced.
b)
Introduction of the identified DNA
into the host: A vector DNA
such as plasmid is used to
deliver an alien piece of DNA into the host organism.
c) Maintenance
of introduced DNA in the host and transfer of the DNA to its progeny: A
piece of alien DNA has no the sequence called Origin of replication (ori) needed
for starting replication. So, it cannot multiply itself in the progeny cells of
the organism. Hence alien DNA is integrated into the recipient genome (it has ori).
It multiplies & inherits along with host DNA.
· The process of joining and inserting a
foreign piece of DNA into a host organism to produce new genetic combinations
is called recombinant DNA technology.
· First recombinant DNA (rDNA) was produced
by Stanley Cohen & Herbert Boyer (1972).
· They
isolated an antibiotic resistance gene (piece of DNA) from a plasmid of Salmonella
typhimurium. It was linked with a plasmid vector and transferred into E.
coli. As a result, the gene was
expressed & multiplied in E. coli.
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