genetic engineering

Question 1

What is genetic engineering ?

Answer 1

Genetic engineering is one of the modern agricultural biotechnology tools based on the recombinant DNA technology which is used to describe the process by which the genetic makeup of an organism can be altered using recombinant DNA technology. it involves use of laboratory tools and specific enzymes to cut out or insert and alter the pieces of DNA that contain one or more genes of interests.

Question 2

What are the steps in Genetic Engineering ?

Answer 2

Nucleic acid (DNA/RNA) extraction
it is the first step in the genetic engineering process. in any isolation process the initial step is the disruption of the cell of the desired organism which may be viral, bacterial, plant cell in order to extract the nucleic acid.
after series of chemical and biochemical steps the extracted nucleic acid can be precipitated to form thread like pellets of DNA/RNA

Gene cloning-
Isolation of DNA(gene of interest ) fragments to be cloned
insertion of the isolated DNA into the suitable vector to form the recombinant DNA
introduction of the recombinant DNA into a suitable organism known as host
multiplication /Introduction of the introduced Gene into the host
isolation and purification of introduced gene.

Gene designing and packaging- once the the gene of interest has been cloned it has be to linked to pieces of DNA that will control its expression inside the plant cell
These pieces of DNA will switch on (promoter) and off (terminator) the expression of the gene inserted.
designing and packaging can be done by replacing an existing promoter with a new one, incorporating marker gene and reporter gene, adding gene enhancer fragments.

transformation- The most common method used to introduce the gene package into the plant cells is a process called as transformation or gene insertion
it includes biolistic transformation using the gene gun and Agrobacterium -mediated  transformation.
Biolistic transformation (Particle bombardment) includes delivery of DNA into plant cells by high velocity gold or tungsten particles.

detection of inserted Genes- Molecular detection methods have been developed to determine the integrity of the transgene (introduced gene) into the plant cell
Polymerase chain reaction or PCR is a quick test to determine if the regenerated transgenic cells or plants contain the gene .
it uses sets of primers (DNA fragments) whose nucleotides sequence are based on sequence of the inserted genes

Question 3

Give a two examples of genetically engineering?

Answer 3

The Glofish
The glofish is a patented and trademarked brand of genetically engineered fluorescent fish. a gene that encodes the green fluorescent protein(GFP) was extracted from a jelly fish that naturally produced bright green fluorescence.

Scientists inserted the gene into a zebrafish embryo, allowing it to integrate into the zebrafish’sgenome, which caused the fish to be brightly fluorescent under both natural light and ultraviolet light

Golden Rice
A japonica variety of rice was engineered with three genes necessary for the rice grain to produce and store beta-carotene
These included two genes from the daffodil plant and a third from a bacterium
Researchers used Agrobacterium microbe to ferry in the genes into the plant cells
The incorporation of these genes allows the rice plant to modify certain metabolic pathways in its cells to produce precursors of Vitamin A, which was previously not possible.