Name: Jean
Status: Student
Grade: 9-12
Location: MD
Country: United States
Date: November 2007
Question:
Is genetic engineering of bacteria is the same as
bacterial transformation?
Replies:
Genetic engineering is usually done on plasmids which are round,
extrachromosomal pieces of DNA that are not part of the bacterial
chromosome. They can be removed from bacteria and cut with restriction
enzymes. New genes from other organisms can be inserted into the plasmid.
But the plasmid needs to be taken up by a second bacterium to get the genes
on the plasmid to be expressed by a living organism. Genes are useless
unless they can be "read" by a living thing. So transformation is the
process of getting a bacterium to take up the plasmid.
NEWTON is an electronic community for Science, Math, and Computer Science K-12 Educators, sponsored and operated by Argonne National Laboratory's Educational Programs, Andrew Skipor, Ph.D., Head of Educational Programs.
