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Genetic Engineering
What is Genetic Engineering?
What is Genetic Engineering?
• Basic definition: genetic engineering is the
direct manipulation of an organism's genes.
• Genetic Engineering is useful in many fields
including food production and medicine.
• While it seems promising, there is still a lot
that we do not know about Genetic
Engineering.
Gregor Mendel
• Gregor Mendel lived
from 1822-1884 in
Brunn, Austria.
• He was an Augustinian
Monk who taught
natural science to high
school students.
The “Father” of Genetics
• Mendel was the first person to trace the
characteristics of successive generations of
living things.
• Mendel wondered how plants acquired
atypical characteristics.
• Mendel performed experiments on pea
plants, mice and ornamental plants.
Dominance and segregation of traits
• Mendel crossed peas and mice of different
varieties.
• Through this experiment Mendel discovered
the phenomena of dominance and
segregation.
• Dominance decides which characteristic most
often surfaces; the dominant characteristic
overrides the recessive gene and appears in
the organism.
• Segregation of genes decides which genes are
inherited from the parents.
Laws of Heredity
• Heredity factors do not combine; they are passed
intact
– Ex: A child of parents with black and red hair
would inherit one of the two colors not a mix of
the two.
• Each member of the parental generation transmits
half of its hereditary factors to each offspring
• Different sets of offspring from the same parents
receive different sets of hereditary factors
– Ex= siblings are not identical, their differences
come from the inheritance of different genes from
their parents.
DNA
• Discovered in 1869
• James Watson and Francis Crick discovered
that DNA had a double Helix form.
• Our DNA or genes decide who we are, they
decide everything from our eye color to our
shoe size.
DNA Engineering
• We use recombinant DNA to manipulate
genes.
• Recombinant DNA is taking DNA from one
source and inserting it into an organism’s
DNA, giving that organism those
characteristics.
– Ex.= Inserting salmon’s anti-freezing genes into
corn to allow it to survive frost.
Process of DNA Engineering
• 1. Restriction enzymes cut DNA at their base parts
causing sticky ends to form.
• 2. DNA ligase (linker sequences of DNA) are placed
on the sticky ends of the DNA.
• 3. A Plasmid holding foreign DNA is inserted into the
DNA and is connected by the ligase. (sticky end to
sticky end)
• 4. The recombinant DNA is inserted into a bacterium
which carries out its function inside the larger
organism.
• 5. When the DNA becomes active it directs the body
to construct distinct proteins which carry out the
gene’s function.