Review the key concepts, formulae, and examples before starting your quiz.
🔑Concepts
Biotechnology is the use of living systems and organisms to develop or make products, such as using yeast ( ) for bread and alcohol production.
Anaerobic respiration in yeast follows the equation: . The is responsible for the rising of bread dough.
Enzymes in biotechnology: Pectinase is used to break down pectin in plant cell walls to extract more fruit juice; biological washing powders use proteases and lipases to break down protein and fat stains at lower temperatures ().
Genetic engineering involves changing the genetic material of an organism by removing, changing, or inserting individual genes from another organism.
The process of genetic engineering requires: 1. Restriction enzymes to cut DNA at specific sites leaving 'sticky ends'; 2. DNA Ligase to join DNA fragments together; 3. Plasmids which act as vectors to carry the foreign DNA into a host cell.
Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) examples include bacteria modified to produce human insulin and crops modified to be resistant to herbicides or pests (e.g., cotton).
Large-scale production of microorganisms (like for penicillin) occurs in fermenters where conditions such as , temperature (), and concentration are strictly controlled.
📐Formulae
💡Examples
Problem 1:
Describe the stages involved in the manufacture of human insulin using genetically folded bacteria.
Solution:
- Isolate the human insulin gene using restriction enzymes. 2. Cut a bacterial plasmid with the same restriction enzyme to create complementary 'sticky ends'. 3. Join the human gene and the plasmid using the enzyme DNA ligase to form recombinant DNA. 4. Insert the recombinant plasmid back into the bacterium (e.g., ). 5. Grow the bacteria in a fermenter to produce large quantities of insulin.
Explanation:
Using the same restriction enzyme ensures that the base sequences on the 'sticky ends' of the human DNA and the bacterial plasmid are complementary, allowing them to anneal via -bonds before ligase seals the phosphate-sugar backbone.
Problem 2:
Why are enzymes like pectinase important in the commercial production of fruit juice?
Solution:
Pectinase catalyzes the hydrolysis of pectin, a polysaccharide found in the primary cell walls of plants. By breaking down pectin, the cell walls are weakened, making it easier to extract juice and resulting in a clearer juice product.
Explanation:
Pectin acts as a 'glue' holding plant cells together. Its degradation reduces the viscosity of the pulp and increases the yield of the juice extracted from the fruit.