Questions tagged [biotechnology]
Biotechnology is a field of biology which utilizes biological systems like microorganisms to produce valuable products, such as biofuels, drugs, and vaccines.
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Can saltwater bacteria grow in petri-dish using the same agar nutrient media?
I am planning on growing bacteria from a seawater sample to do a research project on the relationship between pH (lowered using sulfuric acid) and the bacterial concentration of the water sample (...
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Oxygen requirement of Eschericia coli
What is a good DO% range for E. coli cultivation (BL21(DE3), recombinant protein expression). 30%? At what point is a culture oxygen-limited, or 'highly aerated'? If DO% is relative to reactor ...
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What is the minimum Ct value that you would consider indicates no gene expression?
I am doing relative quantification to compare gene expression between a control with several mutant backgrounds using qPCR.
Looking online I find several different sources suggesting different values ...
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Is there potential to modify GM crops to inhibit their reproduction with non-GM crops?
I've been reading on terminator gene sequences and was wondering whether the same technology could be applied to GM crops to prevent transgene flow. Turns out Monsanto had developed the technology but ...
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What's the difference between a transformant and a recombinant dna? And how to differentiate them both?
I'm unable to understand the difference between the both. Would be really grateful if someone can explain it to me, in simple terms..
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Does blunt end have a hydrogen bond?
I am an undergraduate student of biology.
I saw a lecturer online, who said that sticky ends makes phosphodiester and hydrogen bonds cut. (also here).
But why blunt end just makes phospodiester bonds ...
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Which was the first restriction endonuclease to be isolated?
I kind of have confusion between the first restriction endonuclease to be isolated and discovered.
In class XII NCERT, it says that,
"In the year 1963, the two enzymes responsible for restricting ...
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Recent developments in the diagnosis of Parkinson's Disease
I was reading a research paper titled - "Discovery of Volatile Biomarkers of Parkinson’s Disease from Sebum" by Drupad K. Trivedi. I am Providing a short summary of it.
Discovery of ...
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Do we need to underline the name of a gene while handwriting?
While teaching about the cry genes and the Cry proteins in Biology class, my teacher told us that the names of genes are always written in lowercase and should be italicized, and the name of protein ...
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Why is my spirulina biomass getting destroyed in my new photobioreactor?
I have a 500L flat plate photobioreactor in my backyard. Whenever I add my culture to the PBR, after 3-4 days of growth, the culture becomes transparent and my biomass is wasted.
I add the stock at a ...
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Why is random protein selection not used more often in biotech to create proteins with desired enzymatic activity?
mRNA/cDNA display allows random libraries of up to ~ 10^13 proteins to be subject to selection for binding to arbitrary binders. In the listed studies, proteins selected for ATP binding also had ATP ...
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How does an engineered supressive Lethal (when present in 2 copies) gene drive spread through a population until causing population extinction?
I understand that at the molecular level a CRISPR mediated gene drive works by copying the altered gene (and the drive containing CAS enzyme, and guide RNA) into the other chromosome containing the ...
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Plasmids for high school students?
For a final project in AP Biology, I am planning to design an experiment that uses the plasmid #170380 from Addgene. However, under availability they say "Academic Institutions and Nonprofits ...
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Why does plasmid recombination require precise "copying and pasting" but microinjection doesn't?
Just learning about biotechnological techniques of gene transfer at the moment. With bacterial plasmid recombination, from a high-school level, we are taught that:
The desired gene is cut using a ...
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What are the differences between dual vector CRISPR/Cas9 lentiviral plasmids Lenti‐Cas9‐2A‐Blast and lentiCas9-Blast?
There are multiple widely-used plasmids for using CRISPR/Cas9 with a dual lentiviral vector strategy (Cas9 & sgRNA on different vectors) in mammalian hosts with a Blasticidin selection selection ...
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In traditional plant cloning, why do we require two different vectors (plasmids)?
So I was recently taught cloning in plants and I came to wonder what is the need to first put the gene of interest in the entry vector plasmid and then the final vector plasmid before finally ...
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How many non-pairing bases can a PCR primer have in directed mutagenesis?
I'm not including a lot of details here, because the problem I'm working with is actually more complex.
Say you have the DNA sequence
5'-...tct gcg gtg gtt ggc att ctg ctg...-3'
Could this sequence ...
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What breaks hydrogen bonds while producing sticky ends using restriction endonucleases?
I am a high school student and I am little confused about the uses of restriction endonucleases. Why do hydrogen bonds(base pairing)
break when restriction endonucleases produce sticky ends? If they ...
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How do scientists create an environment that favors the selection of a microbe with higher production of a certain enzyme?
Let's say you want to create a strain of bacteria that is resistant to heat. You expose all bacteria to high heat and those who have mutated to survive this heat will be the survivors. Then you allow ...
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Could the use of genetically engineered crops result in the population decline of other organisms?
Population decline of other organisms has been an ongoing phenomenon since man learned how to domesticate corps. Many people, including me, is curious if the use of genetically engineered grops result ...
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What is the difference between using an open or a closed configuration for a microfluidic chip?
I am doing a college BioMed project on Lungs-on-a-chip to make disease models and I have seen some authors use open configurations, while others use closed configurations. What advantages and ...
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Is CRISPR being utilized when scientists use the CRISPR/Cas9 system to edit genes?
"CRISPR" and "Cas9" are different things. When a virus attacks a bacteria, the bacteria stores the viral code of the virus in CRISPR. And when the virus attacks again the Cas9 ...
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How was gene knock out done in pre CRISPR era?
I am trying to understand how CRISPR has made the gene knockout or gene editing process simpler to make transgenic animals. Here is an old (pre CRISPR) flowchart from Manis, 2007 that shows how ...
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How can I clone a gene into a plasmid vector with an N-terminal his tag and TEV cleavage site between the tag and the start of the sequence?
I'm a scientist who has significant experience in chemistry but am relatively new to molecular biology and biochemical techniques. I'm trying to make an isolated domain of a protein (166 residues, 19....
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Calcium ions and bacterial transformation
What is the mechanism by which calcium ions and heat treatment allow the bacterial membrane to become permeable, allowing the uptake of plasmids?
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Alkaline Phosphatase and Ligase Protocol for Cloning
In the image the circular molecule is a restricted vector and the linear red molecule is a DNA insert.
I found this protocol in my lessons notes, but I don't understand how it is possible that ligase ...
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What material is permeable for plant roots, but "impermeable" for fungi & bacteria?
I'm designing an experiment where the roots of the plant will grow in a sterile environment while the shoot will grow in a non-sterile grow room. For this reason the environments of the shoot and the ...
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Hybrid seed production requires a male sterile parent. Why?
Hybridization is the process of crossing two plant species or varieties. In this case, two varieties of plants. In plant breeding, crossing is a very useful technique to improve the features of the ...
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Meaning of "stripped" in "stripped antibody-depleted sera"
From a research paper:
FOLR1 autoantibody detection
The assay for identification of the presence and relative quantification of FOLR1 autoantibodies in serum samples was performed as previously ...
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What was the breakthrough behind the “sudden” feasibility of mRNA vaccines in 2020?
Several sources describe the initial failures in the realization of a successful mRNA vaccine. E.g., this 2017 article from Stat describes the following problem faced by Moderna while working on one ...
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Why we need a plasmid for r-DNA technology [closed]
Recently I was studying Biotechnology. When I went through the texts, I had a doubt: both plasmids and gene of interest are made of DNA stretches and bacteria directly absorb plasmids in a test tube (...
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Can we achieve complete photosynthesis on a petri dish? Barriers and potential
If we were to place bacteriorhodopsin and ATP synthase in an acidified solution (for H+ ions) filled with phospholipids, ADP and inorganic phosphate, hopefully the bacteriorhodopsin and ATP synthase ...
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Is synthesizing DNA in-house feasible?
I've been reading up about DNA writing, and it seems there are machines available around the five-figure US dollar mark for DNA synthesis, and I'm considering picking one up for my lab.
We normally ...
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Do we come to know which allele is dominant by seeing family genration tree only?
I know that a Gene has Alleles (variation) and one is Dominant over Other i.e the Other Recessive.
Then I got a Thought that How can we tell whether an Allele is Dominant or Recessive...... and I came ...
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how long would oxidation of ammonia solution to nitrates take?
A hot topic among amateur chemists is making nitric acid from ammonia. While not as useful, im interested in making nitrate salts from ammonia as well.
A simple idea is to just infect ammonia solution ...
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DNA denaturation and Renaturation
If we denature dsDNA by heating it and then rapidly cooling it then what would happen?
I read this question, where it was written that if we were given dsDNA sample which was completely denatured and ...
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Public fermentation/cell cultivation database?
I am wondering if there are any large collections of fermentation or cell cultivation data publicly available.
I am interested in all cell types used within industrial biotech and biopharma, ...
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What does this mean? [closed]
The phenotypic ratio of dihybrid cross 9:3:3:1 can be derived as a combination series 3 yellow: 1 green, with 3 round :1 wrinkled. This derivation can be writtenbas follows:
(3 round :1 wrinkled) (...
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Is it possible to reduce maturity time of plants with biotechnology?
I've heard of speed breeding which makes use of optimal circumstances in glasshouses and growth chambers. Is it also possible to shorten a plant's maturity time (i.e. the time it needs from being ...
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Technologies that rely on evolution [closed]
It's possible that this is offtopic here; if so, please let me know.
I'm wondering what technologies exist that rely on evolution being a correct model; I'd like to be able to offer examples of that ...
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What are the difficulties/challenges against developing a coronavirus vaccine?
Multiple groups of scientists are trying to develop a coronavirus vaccine but they are not yet being fruitful. What challenges or difficulties are there in the process that slowing down and/or causing ...
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Design primers for PCR from given DNA sequence
Given the sequence: 5’-ACTGACTATGTAGAA………GGCCCTAAGGGCCAA-3’ (1)
You wish to do PCR of this dsDNA to add “overhangs” on the ends of it. On the 5’ end of you will put
the restriction site for ...
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Why is an antibiotic-resistance gene required during transformation of recombinant plasmid?
In my biology textbook, it said that in transformation, the recombinant plasmid containing an antibiotic-resistance gene act as a 'selective marker'. That means that plasmid in transformed bacteria ...
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Are there any ways to force DNA-origami to create a geometric shape from non-nucleotides (not from DNA)?
I mean, can we create with the help of DNA-origami figures that would not consist of DNA, but, for example, carbon? Is it even possible?
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Fluorescence assays to identify protein concentration without adding a large peptide sequence?
I'm trying to find a way of tagging a protein with something visually quantifiable to track protein concentration through potential purification steps and screen for the most efficient such steps. ...
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What pH ranges are used in industrial scale fermentation?
When reading
Hans-Peter Meyer, Wolfgang Minas, and Diego Schmidhalter (2017) Industrial-Scale Fermentation. Industrial Biotechnology: Products and Processes, First Edition. Edited by Christoph ...
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Why haven't humans been able to make blood producing vats?
There are people in hospitals in life threatening circumstances that need blood packages, and they fully depend on blood donors' blood.
With our current technology, we have been able to "persuade" ...
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How DNA probe binds
I am studying about southern hybridization now and I've a doubt.After the DNA has been fragmented using restriction enzymes and obtained on nitrocellulose blot , it is still double stranded (the ...
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What is the use of having a surrogate mother in animal cloning?
In animal cloning, an ovum is collected by an animal and processed to form an embryo after fusion, which is going to be inserted to a surrogate mother. So my question is that why can't the embryo be ...
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Problem with joining the gene of interest into the open plasmid when their lengths are not the same
Before the recombinant plasmid is obtained in recombinant DNA, the gene of interest is inserted into a linearized plasmid by DNA ligase.
What happens if the length of the gene of interest is not the ...
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