biotechnology

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BIOTECHNOLOGY

• (PRODUCTS AND TECHNIQUES OF PRODUCTION)

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• Biotechnology is defined by the US government as
  any technique that uses living organisms (or
  parts of organisms) to make or modify products,
  to improve plants and animals or to develop
  microorganisms for specific uses.
• Biotechnology is the use of living systems and
  organisms to develop or make products.

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• ?any technological application that uses
  biological systems, living organisms or
  derivatives thereof, to make or modify products
  or processes for specific use
• ?For thousands of years, humankind has used
  biotechnology in agriculture, food production,
  and medicine.

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• BRANCHES OF BIOTECHNOLOGY
• ?A series of derived terms have been coined to
  identify several branches of biotechnology

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• ?Bioinformatics - is an interdisciplinary field
  which addresses biological problems using
  computational techniques, and makes the rapid
  organization as well as analysis of biological
  data possible.

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• ?Blue biotechnology - is a term that has been
  used to describe the marine and aquatic
  applications of biotechnology, but its use is
  relatively rare.
• ?White biotechnology-also known as industrial
  biotechnology, is biotechnology applied to
  industrial processes.

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• ?Green biotechnology - is biotechnology applied
  to agricultural processes.
• ?Red biotechnology is applied to medical
  processes.

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IMPORTANCE OF BIOTECHNOLOGY ?A wide
variety of microorganisms are now being employed
as tools in biotechnology to produce useful
products or services.
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• ?Raw materials can be converted to useful
  finished products.
• ?Biotechnologically produced organic acids like
  citric acid, acetic acid, gluconic acid, D-Lactic
  acid, fumaric acid, etc. also has very high
  market value.
• ?Biotechnology is widely used in pharmacy to
  create more efficient and less expensive drugs.

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TECHNIQUES USED IN THE PRODUCTION OF
BIOTECHNOLOGICS
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RECOMBINANT DNA (rDNA)

• joining together of DNA molecules from two
  different species that are inserted into a host
  organism to produce new genetic combinations that
  are of value to science, medicine, agriculture,
  and industry. Since the focus of all genetics is
  the gene, the fundamental goal of laboratory
  geneticists is to isolate, characterize, and
  manipulate genes. Although it is relatively easy
  to isolate a sample of DNA from a collection of
  cells, finding a specific gene within this DNA
  sample can be compared to finding a needle in a
  haystack. Consider the fact that each human cell
  contains approximately 2 metres (6 feet) of DNA.

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• Therefore, a small tissue sample will contain
  many kilometres of DNA. However, recombinant DNA
  technology has made it possible to isolate one
  gene or any other segment of DNA, enabling
  researchers to determine its nucleotide sequence,
  study its transcripts, mutate it in highly
  specific ways, and reinsert the modified sequence
  into a living organism.

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MONOCLONAL ANTIBODIES

• antibody produced artificially by a genetic
  engineering technique. Production of monoclonal
  antibodies was one of the most important
  techniques of biotechnology to emerge during the
  last quarter of the 20th century.

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• When activated by an antigen, a circulating B
  cell multiplies to form a clone of plasma cells,
  each secreting identical immunoglobulin
  molecules. It is such immunoglobulinsderived
  from the descendants of a single B cellthat are
  called monoclonal antibodies.

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• The antibody response to a natural infection or
  an active immunization, however, is polyclonal.
  In other words, it involves many B cells, each of
  which recognizes a different antigenic
  determinant (epitope) of the immunizing antigen
  and secretes a different immunoglobulin.

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• Thus the blood serum of an immunized person or
  animal normally contains a mixture of antibodies,
  all capable of combining with the same antigen
  but with different epitopes that appear on the
  surface of the antigen.

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• Furthermore, even antibodies that bind to the
  same epitope often have different abilities to
  bind to that epitope. This makes isolating an
  appreciable quantity of a particular monoclonal
  antibody from the polyclonal mixture extremely
  difficult.

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POLYMERASE CHAIN REACTION (PCR)

• a technique used to make numerous copies of a
  specific segment of DNA quickly and accurately.
  The polymerase chain reaction enables
  investigators to obtain the large quantities of
  DNA that are required for various experiments and
  procedures in molecular biology, forensic
  analysis, evolutionary biology, and medical
  diagnostics.

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• The PCR technique is based on the natural
  processes a cell uses to replicate a new DNA
  strand. Only a few biological ingredients are
  needed for PCR. The integral component is
  the template DNAi.e., the DNA that contains the
  region to be copied, such as a gene. As little as
  one DNA molecule can serve as a template. The
  only information needed for this fragment to be
  replicated is the sequence of two short regions
  of nucleotides (the subunits of DNA) at either
  end of the region of interest.

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These two short template sequences must
be known so that two primersshort stretches of
nucleotides that correspond to the template
sequencescan be synthesized. The primers bind,
or anneal, to the template at their complementary
sites and serve as the starting point for
copying. DNA synthesis at one primer is directed
toward the other, resulting in replication of the
desired intervening sequence.
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• Also needed are free nucleotides used to build
  the new DNA strands and a DNA polymerase,
  anenzyme that does the building by sequentially
  adding on free nucleotides according to the
  instructions of the template.