Question

1) How are ecoli bacteria used to produce insulin?

2) Why is it important for an organism that DNA undergoes semi-conservative replication?

Answer 1

Answer 1

To produce insulin in E coli bacteria following steps are to be followed:-

1. Mature mRNA of insulin gene is isolated from a eukaryotic cell.

2.cDNA(complementary DNA) is formed from the mature mRNA by the help of enzyme reverse transcriptase.

Purpose of formation of cDNA is to eliminate the introns coding sequences from the DNA because prokaryotic cell donot have post translational mechanism for elimination of introns.

3. This cDNA is incorporated into E coli genome with the help of suitable vector.

4. Now the transcription machinery of E coli cells will transcribe the insulin gene and ultimately forms the insulin (protein).