L21: Biotechnology In Use

Question 1

Vaccines, growth hormones, antibodies, vectors and recombinant proteins are examples of?

Answer 1

Therapeutic proteins/products (it means they’re most likely produced using transgenic/whole animals)

Question 2

Gene therapy, CRISPR, monitoring devices and therapeutic strategies are all examples of when recombinant DNA technology is used for?

Answer 2

Diagnosing disease

Question 3

What is the best host choice financially? (for making recombinant proteins)

Answer 3

Bacterial culture

Question 4

Why would transgenics be the poorest option financially?

Answer 4

Because it requires whole animals thus it is more expensive (because mass production would require more animals)

Question 5

What is the best host choice for biochemical reasons? Why?

Answer 5

Mammalian cell culture and transgenics.

• because you can do more with them aka carryout post translational modification (which bacteria are not capable of doing)

Question 6

Does insulin require post-translational modification? Where is it best produced in?

Answer 6

No; In bacterial cells

Question 7

Does EPO require post translational modification? Where is it best produced in?

Answer 7

Yes; in mammalian cells

Question 8

Does antithrombin require post-translational modification? Where is it best produced in?

Answer 8

Yes; transgenic animals

Question 9

Why is degenerate PCR prone to error and mutations?

Answer 9

Because it can’t correct any errors in the DNA sequence during PCR

Question 10

Why might degenerate PCR be used to form new proteins?

Answer 10

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

Question 11

How might we be able to use recombinant DNA technologies in clinics to provide a permanent treatment?

Answer 11

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.

Question 12

How are plasmids carried into patients? This is a main component of gene therapy.

Answer 12

Viral vectors

Question 13

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.

Answer 13

Gene therapy

Question 14

Which one of the following is not a recombinant protein?:

a) Insulin
b) EPO
c) glucagon
d) antibodies

Answer 14

c) glucagon

Question 15

How might diabetes be permanently treated by gene therapy?

Answer 15

The liver is targeted into becoming a protein factory to produce insulin endogenously.

Question 16

What is the general concept of gene therapy?

Answer 16

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

Question 17

In general terms, how do we engineer proteins for biotechnology?

Answer 17

By taking a gene of interest (using degenerate PCR) and inserting it into an organism to express a specific protein.

Question 18

What is the reason behind the glucose responsive gene being fused with the pre-pro insulin gene?

Answer 18

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)

Question 19

Why would you not want insulin to be produced during the fasting state?

Answer 19

Because glucose is still being produced

Question 20

What is the difference between the fed and fasting state?

Answer 20

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.