Recombinant DNA Technology
Recombinant DNA Technology
Recombinant DNA Technology
PCR reactions are run on thermal cyclers using the following components:
a.)Template – DNA to be amplified
b.)Primers – small, chemically synthesized oligonucleotides that are complementary to a region of
the DNA.
c.) Enzyme – DNA polymerase
d.)Nucleotides – needed to extend the primers by the enzyme.
e.) The cut fragments of DNA can be amplified using PCR and then ligated with the cut vector.
4. Ligation of DNA Molecules – The purified DNA and the vector of interest are cut with the same
restriction enzyme. This gives us the cut fragment of DNA andt he cut vector that is now open. The
process of joining these two pieces together using the enzyme DNA ligase is ligation. The
resulting DNA molecule is a hybridof two DNA molecules – the interest molecule and the vector. In
the terminologyof genetics this intermixing of different DNA strands is called recombination.
Hence, this new hybrid DNA molecule is also called a recombinant DNA molecule and the
technology is referred to as the recombinant DNA technology
.5. Insertion of Recombinant DNA into Host - In this step, the recombinant DNA is introduced into a
recipient host cell mostly, a bacterial cell. This process is called transformation. Bacterial cells do not
accept foreign DNA easily. Therefore, they are treated to make them competent to accept new DNA.
The processes used may be thermal shock, Ca++ ion treatment, and electroporation.
7. Obtaining or culturing the Foreign Gene product - When you insert a piece of alien DNA into a
cloning vector and transfer it into a bacterial cell, the alien DNA gets multiplied. The ultimate aim is
to produce a desirable protein expression. The cells harboring cloned genes of interest are grown on
a small scale in the laboratory. These cell cultures are used for extracting the desired protein using
various separation techniques.