What Is The Any Use Of Tecnology To Change The Gentic Makeup Of Living Things

Genetic engineering refers to the directly manipulation of Dna to change an organism'south characteristics (phenotype) in a particular way.

What is genetic engineering science?

Genetic engineering science, sometimes called genetic modification, is the process of altering the DNA in an organism's genome.
This may hateful irresolute one base pair (A-T or C-G), deleting a whole region of DNA, or introducing an additional copy of a gene.
Information technology may also mean extracting DNA from another organism'south genome and combining information technology with the DNA of that individual.
Genetic engineering is used by scientists to heighten or modify the characteristics of an individual organism.
Genetic engineering can be applied to any organism, from a virus to a sheep.
For example, genetic engineering science can be used to produce plants that take a higher nutritional value or can tolerate exposure to herbicides.

How does genetic technology work?

To aid explain the procedure of genetic engineering science nosotros have taken the example of insulin, a protein that helps regulate the saccharide levels in our blood.

Normally insulin is produced in the pancreas, merely in people with blazon 1 diabetes there is a problem with insulin production.
People with diabetes therefore have to inject insulin to command their blood sugar levels.
Genetic engineering has been used to produce a type of insulin, very like to our own, from yeast and bacteria likeE. coli.
This genetically modified insulin, 'Humulin' was licensed for homo employ in 1982.

The genetic engineering process

A pocket-sized piece of circular DNA called a plasmid is extracted from the leaner or yeast cell.
A modest section is and so cut out of the circular plasmid by brake enzymes, 'molecular scissors'.
The gene for human insulin is inserted into the gap in the plasmid. This plasmid is now genetically modified.
The genetically modified plasmid is introduced into a new leaner or yeast cell.
This cell then divides quickly and starts making insulin.
To create large amounts of the cells, the genetically modified bacteria or yeast are grown in large fermentation vessels that contain all the nutrients they need. The more than the cells divide, the more insulin is produced.
When fermentation is consummate, the mixture is filtered to release the insulin.
The insulin is then purified and packaged into bottles and insulin pens for distribution to patients with diabetes.

Illustration showing how genetic modification is used to produce insulin in bacteria.

An illustration showing how genetic modification is used to produce insulin in bacteria.
Epitome credit: Genome Research Express

What else is genetic engineering used for?

The first genetically modified organism to be created was a bacterium, in 1973.
In 1974, the same techniques were applied to mice.
In 1994 the outset genetically modified foods were made bachelor.
Genetic technology has a number of useful applications, including scientific enquiry, agronomics and technology.
In plants, genetic engineering has been practical to amend the resilience, nutritional value and growth rate of crops such equally potatoes, tomatoes and rice.
In animals information technology has been used to develop sheep that produce a therapeutic poly peptide in their milk that tin be used to care for cystic fibrosis, or worms that glow in the night to allow scientists to learn more about diseases such every bit Alzheimer's.

Alzheimer's disease and the worm

The nematode worm, C. elegans, only has effectually 300 cells in its unabridged nervous system, making information technology a very simple model for studying Alzheimer's disease.
Also, due to the fact the worm is nearly transparent, when their nerve cells are labelled with green fluorescent poly peptide (GFP), it is possible to watch the location and action of various structures and proteins under the microscope.
The genetic material of C. elegans can hands be genetically modified to make the worm produce specific proteins the researchers want to written report.
In humans, the APP factor codes for a protein associated with the amyloid plaques that are characteristic of people with Alzheimer'due south affliction.
And so, to written report Alzheimer'due south, the researchers genetically engineered the nerve cells of the worm to comprise the APP gene, effectively giving it Alzheimer's.
Past tagging the APP protein produced in the worm with green fluorescent protein it was possible to see that all the cells that made contact with APP died every bit the worm got older.
The researchers were so able to monitor the progression of Alzheimer'southward disease in the worm and become on to utilize their findings to understanding the function of APP in humans with Alzheimer'southward illness.