Genetic Manipulation

Genes have been manipulated by man for a very long time, that is, if selective breeding, which
has been practised for centuries in agriculture and elsewhere to develop desirable characteristics
in domesticated animals and plants, is to be considered as manipulation, as it rightly should.
Even from the early days of Gregor Mendel, the Moravian monk and pioneer of genetic analysis,
plants were bred to bring out interesting, useful and sometimes unusual traits. Many of these are
now lost to classical plant breeders because of divergence of strains leading to infertile hybrids.
One of the joys of genetic engineering (GE) is that in some cases, ancient genes may be rescued
from seed found in archaeological digs, for example and reintroduced by transfer into modern
strains. It has been proposed that the exchange of genetic information between organisms in
nature is considerably more commonplace than is generally imagined and could explain the
observed rates of evolution. In bacteria, the most likely candidates for genetic transfer are
plasmids and bacteriophage, and since eukaryotes lack plasmids, their most plausible vectors are
eukaryotic viruses. This, of course, is in addition to DNA transfer during sexual reproduction.
Existing knowledge would suggest that exchange involving a vector requires compatibility
between the organism donating the genetic material, the vector involved and the recipient
organism. For example, two bacteria must be able to mate for plasmid transfer to take place, or if
a virus is involved as a vector, it must be able to infect both the donor and recipient cells or
organisms. However, there is evidence to suggest that this view is somewhat naive and that there
is considerably more opportunity for genetic exchange between all cells, prokaryotic and
eukaryotic, than is popularly recognized.

Bacteria are notorious for their ability to transfer genes between each other as the need arises
thanks to the location on plasmids of most of the gene groups, or operons, involved in
breakdown of organic molecules. Strong evidence for the enormous extent of these ‘genomic
pools’ comes from analysis of marine sediment. Throughout this book, the point has been made
that microorganisms involved in remediation do so in their ‘natural’ state largely because they
are indigenous at the site of the contamination and have developed suitable capabilities without
any external interference. However, sometimes after a sudden contamination such as a spill,
microbes are not able to amass useful mutations to their DNA quickly enough to evolve suitable
pathways to improve their fitness for that changed environment, and so they may be ‘trained’ by
the artificially accelerated expansion of pre-existing pathways. The final option is that they may
be genetically engineered. Organisms which represent the ‘norm’, frequently being the most
abundant members occurring in nature, are described as ‘wild type’. Those with DNA which
differs from this are described as mutant. Alteration can be by the normal processes of evolution
which constantly produce mutants, a process which may be accelerated artificially, or by
deliberate reconstruction of the genome, often by the introduction of a gene novel to that
organism. This latter route is the basis of GE which has several advantages over traditional
breeding or selection techniques. The process is specific, in that one gene, or a selected group of
genes, is transferred and so the mutation is quite precise. There is flexibility in the system in that,
depending on the modifications made to the genome, a new product may be produced or the
level of expression of the existing product or products may be altered in quantity or proportions
to each other. This whole subject of proteomics is a discipline in its own right on which volumes
are published. Another advantage often quoted is that GE allows genes to be transferred between
totally unrelated organisms. The preceding discussion suggests that this is not a phenomenon
unique to GE, but it is at least defined and specific.