Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Module 6 Bio - Genetic Change
Module 6 Bio - Genetic Change
Mutation - How does mutation introduce new alleles into a population?
- explain how a range of mutagens operate, including but not limited to:
- electromagnetic radiation sources
- chemicals
- naturally occurring mutagens
- compare the causes, processes and effects of different types of mutation, including but
not limited to:
- point mutation
- chromosomal mutation
- distinguish between somatic mutations and germ-line mutations and their effect on an
organism
- assess the significance of ‘coding’ and ‘non-coding’ DNA segments in the process of
mutation
- investigate the causes of genetic variation relating to the processes of fertilisation,
meiosis and mutation
- evaluate the effect of mutation, gene flow and genetic drift on the gene pool of
populations
ow do genetic techniques affect Earth’s biodiversity?
Biotechnology - H
- investigate the uses and applications of biotechnology (past, present and future),
including:
- analysing the social implications and ethical uses of biotechnology, including
plant and animal examples
- researching future directions of the use of biotechnology
- evaluating the potential benefits for society of research using genetic
technologies
- evaluating the changes to the Earth’s biodiversity due to genetic techniques
Genetic Technologies - Does artificial manipulation of DNA have the potential to
change populations forever?
- investigate the uses and advantages of current genetic technologies that induce genetic
change
- compare the processes and outcomes of reproductive technologies, including but not
limited to:
- artificial insemination
- artificial pollination
- investigate and assess the effectiveness of cloning, including but not limited to:
- whole organism cloning
- gene cloning
- describe techniques and applications used in recombinant DNA technology, for
example:
- the development of transgenic organisms in agricultural and medical
applications
- evaluate the benefits of using genetic technologies in agricultural, medical and
industrial applications
- evaluate the effect on biodiversity of using biotechnology in agriculture
- interpret a range of secondary sources to assess the influence of social, economic and
cultural contexts on a range of biotechnologies
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
⚄ Genetic change can either occur
- Accidentally- mutation (random and unpredictable change in DNA)
- Cause by- mutagen or cellular error
- Radiation, toxins, chemicals
- Chromosomal, point
- On purpose
explain how a range of mutagens operate, including but not limited to:
- point mutation
⚄ Change in only one nucleotide
- Usually errors in DNA replication
- Point mutations- substitution and inversion
- Frameshift point mutations- insertion and deletion
- Frameshift point mutation - FRAME where the bases are read is SHIFTed
- Can have a big impact, easily change the amino acid. Especially if it occurs at a critical point, like start/stop.
- Insertion
- Deletion
- Substitution
- Missense - Codes for a different
amino acid
- Nonsense - Codes for a stop codon
- Silent - Same amino acid produced
- Inversion - two or more nucleotides
become back to front
- Different amino acid, usually a minor change, organism might not be affected at all
- If it occurs at a critical point, like start/stop, a major defect may arise
- Sickle cell anemia - missense substitution
- Glutamic acid is valine instead, making the protein (haemoglobin) fold abnormally
Example:
How much DNA changed - point mutation
How is the DNA different - substitution
Effect - missense mutation
- chromosomal mutation
⚄ Change in arrangement or structure of a chromosome, messing with a big section of DNA
- Usually occur during errors in cell divisions, often meiosis
- If breakage occurs in the middle of a gene, it will be destroyed and inactive
- Deletion - section is lost
- Effect: genes moved to a new place
- Inversion - section breaks off, flips and reattaches
- Effect: genes moved to a new place
- Translocation - section breaks off and sticks to another chromosome
- Effect: genes moved to a new place
- Duplication - section is copied more than once
- May change amount of proteins produced
- Non disjunctions - chromosomes don’t separate properly
- Effects not as distinct
⚄ Number mutations
- Polyploidy - extra set of chromosomes, gametes have 2n chromosomes. Mating with a normal gamete will produce
offspring with 3n chromosomes.
- Often when a gamete undergoes mitosis instead of meiosis I.
- Aneuploidy - extra or one less chromosomes.
- Sometimes homologous chromosomes fail to separate in meiosis I, nondisjunction.
- Down syndrome - three copies of chromosome 21, because of non disjunction in the formation of gametes
distinguish between somatic mutations and germ-line mutations and their effect on an organism
⚄ Germ cell- cell that divides via meiosis to form sex cells
- Mutations here are germline mutations
- Passed to offspring while the parent is unaffected, as the mutation occurs in their sex cells
- Down syndrome
⚄ Somatic mutations
- Only affect the two daughter cells in mitosis, not human offspring
- May not have any impact eg. may occur for a protein that the cell doesn’t used
- Lung cancer uncontrolled cell growth, forming tumors which interrupt functioning and break down alveoli
assess the significance of ‘coding’ and ‘non-coding’ DNA segments in the process of mutation
-
evaluate the effect of mutation, gene flow and genetic drift on the gene pool of populations
-
- Founder effect - sudden event that starts a new population (moved to a different environment), where the animals
there may not be representative of the original population
- recessive beetles
- Gene flow - beetles form each island are able to migrate to each other
- Could introduce new alleles, eg. green colour
⚄ Selection pressures - external factor affecting an organism’s ability to survive in its environment
- Change allele frequency- organisms with advantageous alleles will survive
- Positive- Increase the frequency of the allele in the gene pool
- Negative- Decrease the frequency of the allele in the gene pool
IQ 1 - How does mutation introduce new alleles into a population?
- Mutations can be caused by radiation or chemical mutagens
- They are the only source of new alleles - through germ line mutations, and if it occurs in coding DNA
investigate the uses and applications of biotechnology (past, present and future), including:
- analysing the social implications and ethical uses of biotechnology, including plant and animal examples
⚄ Biotechnology - use of biological systems, processes and organisms in the creation of new products
- Used to improve the quality of human life, and environment
- Used in many fields, but mainly medicine, agriculture, environment and industry
⚄ Historical - has been used for thousands of years
- Selective breeding in agriculture - old civilisations breed only certain individuals, with particular traits
- Cows, who produced more milk, wheat that was more disease resistant, chickens that laid more eggs and
juicier corn
- Retain these traits in future generations
- Making tomatoes edible, bananas, carrots, peaches.
- Fermentation - microbes (bacteria and yeasts) break down sugar in the absence of oxygen to produce alcohols and
acids
- Beer, wine, bread, cheese, yoghurt, pickles
- Extend shelf life of food - important in old times
- Traditional medicine - using fungi, bacteria, maggots
- Antibiotics in mouldy soybeans to treat skin infections- stopped the growth of the infection
- Birth control pill and drugs such as aspirin
- Vaccines (smallpox)
- Soaps and detergents
⚄ Present uses and applications - started with the discovery of DNA in the mid 1900s
- Improvement of historical biotechnology
- Selective breeding- use knowledge of inheritance
- Antibiotics, reproductive technologies, [MORE]
- New molecular techniques to manipulate DNA
- Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) - used to amplify sections of DNA so scientists can more easily use it
- DNA sequencing - determining the base order of DNA
- DNA profiling - analysing DNA regions that are different from other people to identify a person
- Cloning - making a genetic copy of an organism
- Transgenic organisms - organisms containing genes from other organisms
- Medicine - IVF, producing human proteins, more vaccines, gene therapy, stem cell research
- Industry - biofuels and bioplastics being a more sustainable source of fuel
- Agriculture - pesticide resistant crops (BT cotton), genetically making high-yield crops, changing animals to do the
same thing, cloning
⚄ Future uses and applications
- Driving force behind improvements in many fields
- Improving health, ensuring sufficient food for growing population sizes
- Unpredictable impacts in ecosystems and mass disease, due to reduced genetic diversity
- Implications on social, ethical and economical aspects of humanity
⚄ Implications of biotechnology using animals - morals, ethics, concerns about the unknown
- If animal viruses will affect humans
- Vegetarians - animal gene may be used in products
- Religious people - sacred animal genes may be used in products
- Is genetic modification for human convenience immoral?
⚄ Implications of biotechnology using plants - affect native species, less variation, original varieties disappear
- Spread of unnatural genes from GMOs to create harmful/resistant strains
- Now allergens may be created - people allergic to things use in genetic modification, can’t use the GMOS
- Vegetarians, labelling laws
- Smaller farms can’t compete with large scale ones
- Using a particular company’s seeds 24/7 - make the world dependent on the company
- researching future directions of the use of biotechnology
⚄ There has been an exponential growth of technological ability, and it's still increasing
- Possibly do more to edit genes and help people to live longer
- evaluating the potential benefits for society of research using genetic technologies
Synthetic meat production Longer life Genome editing and cures for diseases
End world hunger Impacts on Yay Overcrowding Better health Equity issues
Vegetarians may farmers Unemployment Less suffering Insurance issues
decide to eat meat
as it is cruelty
free
Better for the
environment
- evaluating the changes to the Earth’s biodiversity due to genetic techniques
Cloning -bypasses crossing over and other processes that shuffle up alleles
Genetic engineering - increases variation, as it makes new alleles by using those of other species
- However, it eventually decreases biodiversity, as farmers will want to plant the better ones rather than the usual
ones. Genetic diversity may be lost
IQ 2 - How do genetic techniques affect Earth’s biodiversity?
- Biotechnology has been used extensively in medicine, industry, agriculture and the environment to benefit humans
- Genes can be spliced into GM organisms
- They can be introduced to other populations - gene flow
- Biodiversity of a species may be lost if GM crops are grown, as they are preferable to everyone
investigate the uses and advantages of current genetic technologies that induce genetic change
compare the processes and outcomes of reproductive technologies, including but not limited to:
-
- ↓
-
- The same enzyme is used to cut the plasmid and the target gene
- This way the sticky ends are complementary to each other
-
-
- Insertion - sticky ends bind, the the target gene is inserted into the plasmid
- According to base pairing rules, they quickly form a strong bond
- Ligation - An enzyme called DNA ligase stitches up the broken bond in the backbone
- →
⚄ Selecting recombinant plasmids
- Sometimes they just rejoin after being separated, or match up the wrong way around, or some don’t take up a
plasmid at all
⚄ Bacterial transformation
1. Introducing foreign DNA into bacteria - It’s easy for scientists to make them multiply
- Add the bacteria and recombinant plasmid to a solution of calcium ions, which makes holes in the bacteria’s
membrane
- Temperature is increased for a short amount of time, which pushes them into the cell
- Since the recombinant plasmid carried the gene, it’s a vector
- Bacteria are placed in a nutrient rich solution to recover and reproduce
- However, not all take in the plasmid. Those that do are transformants
- Those that don’t are non transformants, that either don’t pick it up by chance or are killed in the high
temperature
- To tell which ones picked it up, scientists use plasmids with a selectable marker, usually an antibiotic
resistance gene
- Allows bacteria to survive in the presence of a specific antibiotic
- Bacteria placed with antibiotics, those with the gene don’t die, those without do
2. Uses of Transformants
- Protein - Can be harvested and purified for use, eg insulin
- Copies of the target gene used for other things eg DNA sequencing and profiling, transgenic organisms
- This way is cheaper than PCR, and has less errors
⚄ Much fewer risks and issues than other genetic technology
- Biopharmaceuticals - eg. insulin
- Gene therapy - used to correct fault genes eg. cystic fibrosis
⚄ Restriction enzymes - used in gene therapy
- Like a bacteria’s immune response - protect against bacteriophages/bacteria viruses
- Cut up viral DNA
- Each has a certain recognition site - whenever it sees a certain base combination (eg. AACTGC) it will cut the RNA
- It could cut twice and leave sticky ends
- It could cut once and leave a blunt end
- Palindromic sequence - reads it from 5’ to 3’, and the code is the same
- They will naturally attract and joining together, however ligase is needed to rejoin the sugars and phosphates again
⚄ CRISPR - there may not be a 6 base palindromic sequence that can be cut by a restriction enzyme
- CRISPR - little bits of DNA that a bacteria has kept from pervious viruses that have infected it
- Bacteria can produce RNA from this - enclosed in an enzyme - Cas9 - crispr associated protein
- If the bacteria in infected again, the Cas9 runs along the virus RNA strand, and if it finds a match, it cuts the RNA
- Scientists can put any piece of RNA into a Cas9 enzyme, and cut the DNA of anything
⚄ Getting DNA into a host cell - can be tricky
- Bacteria can take up plasmids using chemical treatments like heat and electricity
- Microinjection
- Agrobacterium
⚄ Transgenic organisms - organism containing a gene from another species
- Goats that can produce milk that can be spun into spider silk
- Cows that produce human milk
- BT cotton
⚄ Genetically modified organisms GMOs - have their DNA modified, doesn’t have to be by adding external genes
- Disrupting genes, adding genes that were synthesised in a lab
- RNAi technology - in edrolo
evaluate the benefits of using genetic technologies in agricultural, medical and industrial applications
of biotechnologies
⚄ Case study - GM mosquitoes
- A type of mosquito Aedes Aegypti is associated with viruses such as Dengue fever.
- Genetically modified, it requires an antibiotic to be supplied to it in order to live. It's a dominant alleles, and hence
when breeding with a female, their kids cannot grow into an adult, which will hinder reproduction
- Social context - dengue fever is not very developed in the west, people aren’t really trying these strategies
- Cultural context - what people believe, ethical issues, fear of them escaping and doing more harm, fear of unknown
- Economic context - dengue costs 5.5 million, could be cheaper than the GMO mosquitos
- Environmental - GMO mosquitos are more specific than using pesticide, they could wipe out butterflies etc as well
- What if mosquitos build a tolerance or it doesn’t work properly - gene flow won’t work
- Mosquitos are eaten by some animals - bats and birds mostly
IQ 3 - Does artificial manipulation of DNA have the potential to change populations forever?
- Reproductive technologies such as artificial insemination and selective breeding can alter the gene pool by limiting
the amount of animals allowed to breed
- Gene cloning and genetic engineering have potential for good impacts, but also have the ability to change
populations, by adding in new genes
- Whole organism cloning could reduce biodiversity in species as well, by creating farms that contain genetically
identical, high yielding varieties of animals and plants.