Biotech and GM Flashcards
How is vinegar produced?
Using acetic acid bacteria
They produce acetic acid from sugars or ethanol
Obligate aerobes
Grow well at pH<5
How is vitamin C produced using biotech?
Acetic acid bacteria can carry out incomplete oxidation of some higher alcohols and sugars
These metabolic products are used to make vitamin C
How can antibiotics be produced using biotech?
Produced particularly by the streptomycetes
>500 distinct antibiotics are produced by the streptomycetes
Some species produce >1 antibiotic
How is Swiss cheese produced using biotech?
Propionic acid bacteria
Produce carbon dioxide and propionic acid during fermentation
Gas building up forms the holes
Propionic acid gives characteristic taste
What is the first human protein commercially produced using bacteria and when did it go on sale? What was it called?
Insulin
1982
Humulin
detective pikachu is cute
yeet
How is it most efficient to produce insulin via biotech?
Most efficient to construct artificial gene that encodes final hormone rather than make large precursor protein insulin naturally derives from
What are the issues with expressing mammalia genes in bacteria?
Eukaryotic genes must be put under the control of a bacterial promoter
Bacterial genes don’t have introns
Codon bias
Mammalian proteins require post-translational modifications that bacteria may not be able to do
Eukaryotic protein may be toxic to prokaryotes
Protein may be degraded in the host cell
What is a potential solution to eukaryotic genes needing to be put under control of a bacterial
Design special expression vectors with bacterial promoters and ribosome binding site
How do you overcome the issue that bacterial genes don’t have introns?
Introns must be removed from eukaryotic genes
Could clone gene via mRNA and cDNA
How do you overcome the issue of codon bias in expressing mammalia genes in bacteria?
Codon usage varies from organism to organism
May need to alter the codons used to fit with those recognised by your bacterial species
What is pathway engineering?
Process of assembling a new or improved biochemical pathway using genes from one or more organisms
Aiming to produce large amounts of a particular metabolite
What is bioremediation?
Microbial clean up of environmental pollutants by metabolising or detoxifying environmental pollutants like oil, radionuclides, pesticides and plastics
What are microbial plastics?
Biodegradable plastics made by bacteria
Issues with cost of production vs. synthetic plastics and competition with biofuels for carbon substrates
How can microbes help with mining?
Microbial leaching
Can use microbes to extract valuable metals form low grade ores
Microbes have diverse metabolisms
What is the metagenome?
Collective genome of all the organisms growing in an environment
What is gene mining?
Isolating potentially useful novel genes without having to first culture the organism
Metagenomics has identified novel genes, often encoding enzymes with industrial applications
Can be used to screen directly for enzymes with certain properties
What is plant biotechnology?
Application of science and tech to plants, parts, products and models, to alter living or inert materials, in order to develop knowledge, goods and services
What was the green revolution?
A planned international effort in the 1970s to increase crop yield through new crop cultivars, irrigation, fertilisers, pesticides and mechanisation
Reduced chronic hunger from 40% to 20% of world population whilst the population has doubled
Saved millions of hectares of land from cultivation
What did plant breeding and the green revolution achieve specifically?
Faster growth (more than one crop cycle per year)
High yield (better soil assimilation and better biomass)
Semi dwarf habit
Disease resistance (wheat rust and rice blast)
Adaptability to local conditions
Why is plant tissue culture useful?
Some plants can regenerate from a cutting
Micropropagation
Eliminating systemic viruses
What are some tricks to speed up plant breeding?
Protoplast fusion
Embryo rescue
What can we use plant cells as factories for?
Drugs
Dyes
Flavours
Fragrances
How many plant species have been screened for their medical use?
35,000-70,000
What percentage of the 252 drugs considered basic/ essential by the WHO are exclusively of flowering plant origin?
11%
What is taxol?
Potent anti-cancer drug
Binds microtubules to stop cell division
Was isolated from the bark of the Pacific Yew Tree
How can GM plants help?
Increased crop plant yields: protection from pests and pathogens
Improvement of nutritional qualities: more vitamins, proteins and antioxidants
New products: vaccines and plastics
What impact do pests and pathogens have on crop yield?
Reduce crop yield by 30%
What impact does insect have on crop yield?
Reduces crop yield by 13%
What does vitamin A deficiency cause?
Blindness
250,000-500,000 children go blind every year
What has some rice been engineered to produce?
Beta carotene
What would be the benefit of genetically modifying tomatoes?
To get more antioxidants
Tomatoes are widely consumed so engineer them to produce more anthocyanins
What is a vaccine?
An immunogenic protein or proteins that stimulate the body to make the correct antibody to fight the infection
What would be the benefit of plant derived vaccines?
No purification needed Easy to harvest Can be stored dried (no refrigeration) No contamination with pathogens No syringes
What are some problems to overcome with plant derived vaccines?
Efficiency of expression
Regulatory issues
Clinical trials
How can transgenic plants be used to produce plastics?
Produces biodegradable plastic polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB)
PHB granules can be visualised in the plant
3-4 genes are needed to code for the enzymes in the biosynthetic pathway
Difficulties in extracting the plastic from the plant
Why are microorganisms, including fungi, so useful for making different products?
Ease of mass cultivation Grow rapidly Grow on cheap substrates Diversity of potential products Can be genetically manipulated
When was penicillin first purified and by who? What were they spurred on by?
1941
Florey and Chain
Spurred on by need to treat war casualties
What are steroids used for and what was the issue with production? How was this dealt with?
Used for variety of illnesses like rheumatoid arthritis, asthma and eczema
Production was costly, hormone was extracted from animals adrenal glands
Found Rhizpous arrhizus could convert diosgenin to an intermediate that can then be converted to cortisone
What is 1-Ephedrine used for?
Treatment for asthma and as an ingredient in nose drops and inhalants
What are Ergot alkaloids used for?
High toxic but useful as vasoconstrictors Used in uterus contractions and treatment of migraines lysergic acid (LSD) first made by Swiss scientists
What do statins do?
Control cholesterol levels
Most widely used pharmaceutical in the western world
What is citric acid used for?
Used in food industry for soft drinks, jams and confectionary
Also used to prevent loss of vitamin C in canned fruit and veg
What is itaconic acid used for?
Improve the properties of vinyl polymers such as those used in emulsion paint
Produced by Aspergillus terreus, grown in stainless steel aerated tanks
What is gluconic acid used for?
Used in toothpaste manufacture
Produced by Aspergillus niger
What can industrial alcohol be used for?
Ethanol can be used as a solvent in industrial processes or as a fuel
Can be made chemically from petroleum or by fermentation using yeast
Rise in cost and decrease supply of petroleum products make fermentation an alternative
What are glycerols used for and what are they produced by?
Produced by Saccharomyces cerevisiae
Wide range of uses: solvents, plasticisers, sweeteners
Manufacturing explosives, cosmetic soaps and anti-freeze
Also used in printing industry
What is Giberellic acid?
From Fusarium moniliforme
Growth-promoting hormone
Can regulate fruit setting, prevent fruit drop and increase yield
How can fungi be used as food?
Mushroom production Quorn Beverages Bakers yeast Dairy produce Food additives Bread
What is quorn?
Developed by Marlow foods
Fusarium venenatum isolated from soil in Buckinghamshire
Grown on glucose from maize
Annual sales are now in excess of £15 million in UK
How are bread and beverages produced using fungi?
Utilises yeast, mostly Saccharomyces cerevisiae
Yeasts ferment glucose to yield ethyl alcohol and carbon dioxide
How can fungi be used to produce cheese?
Texture and flavour of camembert cheese
Flavour and aroma of Roquefort cheese
What is biological control?
Defined as the use of one organism to control another
Attractive alternative to chemical pesticides
Microbes have been used
What is mycofiltration?
Impregnation of fungal spores and hyphae into fabric landscaping cloth
These fabrics are put onto contaminated ground and the fungal mycelium acts as a filter, trapping and degrading contaminants
