L21: Biotechnology In Use Flashcards
Vaccines, growth hormones, antibodies, vectors and recombinant proteins are examples of?
Therapeutic proteins/products (it means they’re most likely produced using transgenic/whole animals)
Gene therapy, CRISPR, monitoring devices and therapeutic strategies are all examples of when recombinant DNA technology is used for?
Diagnosing disease
What is the best host choice financially? (for making recombinant proteins)
Bacterial culture
Why would transgenics be the poorest option financially?
Because it requires whole animals thus it is more expensive (because mass production would require more animals)
What is the best host choice for biochemical reasons? Why?
Mammalian cell culture and transgenics.
- because you can do more with them aka carryout post translational modification (which bacteria are not capable of doing)
Does insulin require post-translational modification? Where is it best produced in?
No; In bacterial cells
Does EPO require post translational modification? Where is it best produced in?
Yes; in mammalian cells
Does antithrombin require post-translational modification? Where is it best produced in?
Yes; transgenic animals
Why is degenerate PCR prone to error and mutations?
Because it can’t correct any errors in the DNA sequence during PCR
Why might degenerate PCR be used to form new proteins?
Because degenerate PCR can form lots of mutated pieces of DNA, we can extract/select variants we want to make new proteins with new functions
How might we be able to use recombinant DNA technologies in clinics to provide a permanent treatment?
Use humans as host aka gene therapy.
Gene therapy basically means that the protein lacking, can be produced within the human rather than have it artificially put in every couple of days.
How are plasmids carried into patients? This is a main component of gene therapy.
Viral vectors
This is when a viral vector containing the plasmid is directly inserted into the patient themselves. The gene encodes the recombinant protein within the human.
Gene therapy
Which one of the following is not a recombinant protein?:
a) Insulin
b) EPO
c) glucagon
d) antibodies
c) glucagon
How might diabetes be permanently treated by gene therapy?
The liver is targeted into becoming a protein factory to produce insulin endogenously.
What is the general concept of gene therapy?
Inserting plasmids into the body that encourage the expression of a gene to produce specific types of proteins. (like insulin)
- making the human a host
In general terms, how do we engineer proteins for biotechnology?
By taking a gene of interest (using degenerate PCR) and inserting it into an organism to express a specific protein.
What is the reason behind the glucose responsive gene being fused with the pre-pro insulin gene?
We don’t want the liver to produce insulin all the time. So fusing it with a glucose responsive promoter means that the liver will only release insulin when glucose levels are high (mimicking the way the pancreatic B cells would if glucose levels increased)
Why would you not want insulin to be produced during the fasting state?
Because glucose is still being produced
What is the difference between the fed and fasting state?
Fed state is when you’re taking in food (glucokinase turns it into glycogen) and fasting state is when glucose is being made from glycogen.
