BiologyCode 9700
Principles of genetic technology
What this topic asks you to be able to do
- define what is meant by recombinant DNA
- explain that genetic engineering is the deliberate changing of genetic material to alter specific characteristics of an organism; this may involve moving a gene into an organism in a way that lets it be expressed
- explain that a gene for transfer into an organism can be: cut out of a donor organism's DNA, made from a donor organism's mRNA, or synthesised chemically from nucleotides
- explain what restriction endonucleases, DNA ligase, plasmids, DNA polymerase and reverse transcriptase each do when a gene is moved into an organism
- explain why, alongside the target gene, a promoter might also need to be introduced into an organism
- explain how fluorescent products, encoded by marker genes, can serve to confirm that gene expression has taken place
- explain that gene editing works by inserting, deleting or replacing DNA at specific sites within the genome, which makes it a form of genetic engineering
- describe and explain the stages of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR), a method for cloning and amplifying DNA, including the function of Taq polymerase
- describe and explain how gel electrophoresis separates DNA fragments according to their length
- outline the ways microarrays are employed to examine genomes and to detect mRNA in gene expression research
- outline the advantages of consulting databases holding data on nucleotide sequences for genes and for whole genomes, along with amino acid sequences in proteins and their structures