IVE - Genetic Engineering and Cloning Flashcards
What is genetic engineering in simple terms?
We find one organism that has a desirable characteristic e.g. a tomato plant with big fruit, and transfer its DNA to another organism so that it develops the same trait.
What is the organism that has been altered to have a certain trait called?
Genetically Modified
in Genetic Engineering, how is the gene transferred from one organism to another?
- Find the gene that we want and then cut that section of DNA out to isolate it ( we cut it out with an enzyme).
- Insert the gene into a vector, for instance a virus or bacterial plasmid.
- We then introduce the vector to the organism that we want to genetically modify.
- The organism takes up the vector along with the useful gene and begins producing the protein that the gene codes for.
Examples of the use of genetic engineering in industry:
- GM sheep that produce drugs in their milk which we can extract and use in medication.
- GM bacteria which produce the hormone insulin which we can harvest to use as treatments for diabetes.
- GM crops which are resistant to: disease, insects, herbicides, droughts.
What is GENE THERAPY?
The idea is that you replace a person’s inherited gene/s that cause an inherited disorder such as CF or a high risk of developing cancer, with healthy ones that eliminate this.
PROS of Genetic Engineering:
- We can easily make (crops) with desirable characteristics, which is good for industry.
Potential CONS of Genetic Engineering:
- we don’t know for certain how genetically modified pats might affect out health.
- may also make their way into the wild, compete with other plants and change entire ecosystems which could pose a threat to other organisms.
Cloning animals by transplanting a cell nucleus: step 1
- Take an egg from a donor female and remove its nucleus so that you have an “enucleated” egg cell.
Cloning animals by transplanting a cell nucleus: step 2
Take an adult body cell (e.g. skin cell) from the organism you want to clone and remove its nucleus.
Cloning animals by transplanting a cell nucleus: step 3
Put the nucleus from the adult body cell into the enucleated egg cell.
Cloning animals by transplanting a cell nucleus: step 4
Stimulate the cell via. a small electric shock. It will then act like a zygote and divide by mitosis, forming an embryo.
Cloning animals by transplanting a cell nucleus: step 5
implant the embryo into the uterus of a surrogate mother. It will then develop into a fetus and be born like normal.
What is a transgenic organism?
an organism with DNA from another species
It is also possible to clone an organism when it is an embryo:
- pick a male and female cow that have the most desirable traits
- take sperm from male and use it to fertilise an egg from the female, forming a zygote.
- let the zygote (fertilised egg cell) develop into an embryo.
- separate the embryo into lots of smaller embryos.
- implant each of these into the uterus of a surrogate cow
