Essential Idea:
Crops can be modified to increase yields
and to obtain novel products
Understandings:
- Transgenic organisms produce proteins that were not previously part of their species’ proteome
- Genetic modification can be used to overcome environmental resistance to increase crop yields
- Genetically modified crop plants can be used to produce novel products
- Bioninformatics plays a role in identifying target genes
- The target gene is linked to other sequences that control its expression
- An open reading frame is a significant length of DNA from a start codon to a stop codon
- Marker genes are used to indicate successful uptake
- Recombinant DNA must be inserted into the plant cell and taken up by its chromosome or chloroplast DNA
- Recombinant DNA can be introduced into whole plants, leaf discs or protoplasts
- Recombinant DNA can be introduced by direct physical and chemical methods or indirectly by vectors
Applications:
- Use of tumour-inducing (Ti) plasmid of Agrobacterium tumefaciens to introduce glyphosate resistance into soybean crops
- Genetic modification of tobacco mosaic virus to allow bulk production of Hepatitis B vaccine in tobacco plants
- Production of Amflora potato (Solanum tuberosum) for paper and adhesive industries
Skills:
- Evaluation of data on the environmental impact of glyphosate-tolerant soybeans
- Identification of an open reading frame (ORF)