10Class 12 Biology
Biotechnology and its Applications short notes
Short notes on what biotechnology has done for farming and medicine: Bt crops, RNAi, insulin, gene therapy and transgenic animals.
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Agriculture
- GM crops can resist stress and pests, reduce losses and use less pesticide.
- Bt toxin comes from Bacillus thuringiensis, as an inactive protoxin that's activated in insect guts.
- cry genes code for it: cryIAc and cryIIAb for cotton bollworms, and cryIAb for corn borer.
- RNA interference (RNAi) silences genes. It's used to protect tobacco from the nematode Meloidogyne incognita.
Medicine
- Human insulin has A and B chains joined by disulphide bonds. Eli Lilly made them separately, then joined them.
- The first gene therapy, in 1990, treated ADA deficiency in a four-year-old girl.
- Early diagnosis uses PCR and ELISA.
Transgenic animals
- Used to study disease, test vaccines and make biological products.
- Rosie the cow produced milk with human alpha-lactalbumin.
Ethics
- GEAC decides on the safety of GM research and public use.
- Biopiracy is using biological resources without permission. Basmati and turmeric are well-known cases.
Where students slip up
- Thinking Bt toxin harms the bacterium that makes it. It's an inactive protoxin until in the insect gut.
- Mixing up which cry gene targets which pest.
- Saying insulin is one chain. It has two, joined by disulphide bridges.
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