Tag: rdna technology - dna transfer and transformation

• Recombinant DNA molecules are sometimes called chimeric DNA, because they can be made of material from two different species, like the mythical chimera.
• A chimera is essentially a single organism that is made up of cells from two or more individuals—that is, it contains two sets of DNA, with the code to make two separate organisms.
•  R-DNA technology uses palindromic sequences and leads to the production of sticky and blunt ends.

Till today, the most important in genetic engineering of plants has been the Ti plasmid of soil bacterium, Agrobacterium tumefaciens. E.Coli  has been extensively used as "work horse" for genetic engineering e.g., production of humulin, somatotropin. E. coli is one of the most thoroughly studied of all living things. It is a favorite organism for genetic engineering as cultures of it can be made to produce unlimited quantities of the product of an introduced gene. Several important drugs (insulin, for example) are now manufactured in E. coli. Thus, option B is correct. Nitrosomonas, Klebsiella, Nitrobacter, Azotobacter, Rhizobium and Diplococcus are not used in genetic engineering.

Genetic engineering is a branch of science that uses various biotechnological techniques to manipulate an organism's genome to  create species with desired traits. However, the process involves isolation, transfer and insertion of the new genetic material into host genomes and storage of genomes in organisms and selective markers for an indefinite period. Experiments have shown that certain bacteria has the ability to naturally take in and express foreign DNA.  It has been found that of these,  E.coli  has the ability to transfer DNA laterally to and from other species while Agrobacterium  can transfer genes to plants and fungi by causing crown gall disease.

Escherichia coli and Agrobacterium tumefaciens are the most widely used bacteria in genetic engineering for cloning and plant transformation, respectively.

Option 'D' is correct.

Genetic engineering is a branch of science which uses a set of biotechnology techniques and knowledge of cytology and genetics to  bring modifications to an organism's genome.   For such research,  scientists need to store and modify the genes and genetic information from wide range of organisms into organisms that can be easy to transform.  Bacteria more commonly Escherichia coli is used to transform and create the genetically modified bacteria as this can be transformed and stored easily for indefinite periods at -80 C and replicate the modified DNA in short time period.

Transformation is the process by which a bacterial cell takes up naked DNA from its environment.

In blue-white screening, the insertion of foreign DNA into the lacZ gene (which encodes beta-galactosidase) causes insertional inactivation, preventing the production of the enzyme and resulting in white colonies.