Horizontal Gene Transfer In Eukaryotic Analysis

In 1958, a molecular biologist named Francis Crick coined the term central dogma of molecular biology. The central dogma describes the process of how DNA is transcribed into RNA, which then get translate into proteins that is responsible for the traits expression in organisms (Crick, 1970). In eukaryotic, DNA are stores within structures known as chromosomes, which are inherited from the parental organisms, this process is known as vertical gene transfer. In contrast, bacteria can undergo horizontal gene transfer that allows for transfer of genes from one organism to a different organism. Horizontal gene transfer often involves either a bacteriophage, a virus that infect bacteria or a plasmid, which is a circular piece of DNA that exist and

Conjugation is when two organisms is connected to each other through a sex pilus, a copy of a plasmid is then transfer from the donor organism to the recipient organism, the recipient organism can incorporate the plasmid into its chromosome and express new gene. Transduction is another mechanism of horizontal gene transfer, but it involves a bacteriophage instead of a plasmid. When a bacteriophage infects a bacterium, it could pick up some DNA from the bacterium, afterward, the bacteriophage will still contain the DNA and if another bacterium can survive the attack of the same bacteriophage, there is a possibility that the bacterium will acquire new DNA from the bacteriophage. The last bacterial gene transfer mechanism is transformation, which is when naked DNA are uptake from the environment into the bacterium (Marshall, 2016). Transformation is important to molecular biology because it allows for insertion and recombination of DNA in bacteria. Transformed bacteria have the ability to encode new proteins under the right conditions. In diabetes patients, the beta cells within their pancreas has lost the function to secrete insulin, resulting in high level of glucose in blood. However, by transforming bacteria with human insulin gene, the bacteria are able to produce insulin, which is use to help control glucose level in diabetes patient (Baeshen et al., 2014). In this experiment, transformation is used to

coli was used in this experiment due to its versatility and usefulness in biological research. E. coli have been used for a long period of time as the subject organism in many biology experiments, making it one the most understand organism. Additionally, E. coli is relatively harmless to the researchers because it is naturally found in the intestines of humans. Furthermore, it has a very fast growth rate, capable of doubling its population every 20 minutes (Lee, 1996). E. coli also contains a simple genome, which allow for higher level of genetic modification and insertion (Cooper, 2000). One of the most common methods of recombination of E. coli DNA is through inserting a plasmid into the bacteria. The objective of this experiment is to transform bacteria with a pGLO plasmid giving it the resistance to antibiotic and light