Biotechnology Flashcards
What is biotechnology?
Any technique that uses living organisms or substances from those organisms to make or modify a product, to improve plants or animals, or to develop microorganisms for specific uses.
What are some of the applications of biotechnology?
Medicine.
Agriculture.
Environment.
Forestry.
Food and beverage processing.
Pharmaceutical Industry.
How is biotechnology used in medicine?
Gene therapy – use of genes to prevent or treat diseases.
Therapeutant - product used to maintain health or prevent disease.
Biopharmaceuticals – drug or vaccine developed through biotechnology called designer drugs.
Biopharming – production of pharmaceuticals in cultured organisms.
What are the advantages of pharmaceutical biotechnology?
Mass production of biologics.
Human-like molecules.
Less possibilities of allergic reactions.
Sustainability.
What is insulin?
Hormone produced by pancreatic beta cells which enables cells to uptake glucose from bloodstream for ATP production.
Dysregulation-insufficient insulin causes insulin dependent diabetes mellitus:
Cells cannot uptake glucose.
Excessive glucose excreted by kidney, which tries to dilute by excreting large amounts of water.
Requires regular insulin injection to avoid physiological complications.
What was the old method of insulin production?
Before recombinant insulin was available, insulin was obtained from cows’ or pigs’ pancreases.
Amino acid differences can stimulate allergic responses.
Therefore human insulin is preferred.
How is insulin produced?
Plasmid engineering.
Yeast fermentation.
Protein extraction.
Protein purification.
Freeze drying.
Packaging.
Storage.
What is erythropoietin (EPO)?
Hormone produced by kidney.
Glycoprotein acts on the bone marrow to increase the production of red and white blood cells.
Given in AIDS for development of immunity, renal failure, various types of anaemia, bone marrow transplantation, cancer…etc.
How is EPO produced?
Cell culture (Engineered CHO-DN2-3α3 cell line).
Recovery of product-containing extracellular fluid
(centrifugation or filtration).
Blue-sepharose dye affinity chromatography.
Hydroxylapatite chromatography.
Reversed-phase HPLC.
Ion exchange (DEAE-sepharose).
Excipient addition.
Fill and freeze dry.
What is human growth hormone (HGH)?
Hormone produced by pituitary gland which promotes overall body growth by increasing amino acid uptake, protein synthesis & fat utilisation for energy.
Insufficient production causes dwarfism.
Used in dwarfism treatment, help undersized children reach their normal height and size.
What was the old method of HGH production?
Purification of HGH from cadaver pituitary glands.
(8 cadaver/year for 8-10 years per patient).
How is HGH produced?
Isolating and constructing HGH cDNA.
Insertion of the cloned HGH DNA to the host cells (E. coli).
Fermentation in bioreactor.
Centrifugation.
Homogenisation of re-suspended cell paste.
Polyethyleneimine precipitation of nucleic acid.
Ammonium sulphate precipitation of supernatant-concentrates crude rhGH.
Chromatographic purification.
