A Little More Advanced

Biotechnology Tools

Better Plasmids

AP Biology 2007-2008
 Engineered plasmids
 Building custom plasmids
 restriction enzyme sites
 antibiotic resistance genes as a selectable marker
EcoRI

BamHI HindIII

restriction sites
Selectable marker
 antibiotic resistance
gene on plasmid
 ampicillin plasmid
resistance
 selecting for
successful
transformation ori amp
AP Biology resistance
 successful uptake
 Selection for plasmid uptake
 Antibiotic becomes a selecting agent
 only bacteria with the plasmid will grow
on antibiotic (ampicillin) plate
only transformed
all bacteria grow bacteria grow
a
a a a a
a a a
a
a a a a a
a a
a

LB plate LB/amp plate

AP Biology
cloning
 Need to screen plasmids
 Need to make sure bacteria have
recombinant plasmid
restriction sites inserted
EcoRI all in LacZ gene gene
BamHI of interest
HindIII
LacZ gene broken
LacZ gene

lactose  blue color lactose 

X white color
recombinant
plasmid plasmid
amp amp
resistance resistance
origin
AP of
Biology
replication
 Screening for recombinant plasmid

 Bacteria take up plasmid  Bacteria take up recombinant plasmid

 Functional LacZ gene  Non-functional LacZ gene
 Bacteria make blue color  Bacteria stay white color

Which colonies
do we want?

AP Biology
 Finding your “Gene of Interest”

AP Biology 2007-2008
 Finding your gene of interest
 DNA hybridization
 find sequence of DNA using a labeled probe
 short, single stranded DNA molecule
 complementary to part of gene of interest
 labeled with radioactive P32 or fluorescent dye
 heat treat DNA in gel
 unwinds (denatures) strands
 wash gel with probe
 probe hybridizes with denatured DNA
labeled probe
genomic DNA G A T C A G T A G

C T A G T C A T C
AP Biology
 Southern blotting

restriction digest gel electrophoresis blot DNA off of gel

onto filter paper

expose filter paper to

wash filter with labeled probe
AP Biology
X-ray film
 Edwin Southern
Southern blotting

gel of genomic DNA Southern blot Southern blot

IDing one gene illustration
AP Biology
 DNA libraries
 Cut up all of nuclear DNA
from many cells of an
organism
 restriction enzyme
 Clone all fragments into
many plasmids at same time
 “shotgun” cloning
 Create a stored collection of
DNA fragments
 petri dish has a collection
of all DNA fragments from
the organism
AP Biology
 Making a DNA library 2
1
all DNA from many cells engineered plasmid
of an organism is cut with selectable marker
with restriction enzymes & screening system
gene of interest

3
all DNA fragments
4 inserted into many
clone plasmids plasmids
into bacteria

AP Biology
 But how
do we find
DNA library colony with our
gene of interest
recombinant plasmids in it?
inserted into bacteria gene of interest

DNA Library
plate of bacterial colonies
?
storing & copying all genes
from an organism (ex. human)
AP Biology
 Find your gene in DNA library
 Locate Gene of Interest
 to find your gene you need some of
gene’s sequence
 if you know sequence of protein…
 can “guess” part of DNA sequence
 “back translate” protein to DNA
 if you have sequence of similar gene from
another organism…
 use part of this sequence
Which
bacterial colony
?
has our gene?
Like a needle
AP Biology in a haystack!
 Colony Blots 4
Locate
1 Cloning
- expose film
- plate with bacterial - locate colony on plate
colonies carrying from film
recombinant plasmids

plate

plate + filter film

2 3
Replicate plate Hybridization
- press filter paper onto - heat filter paper to
plate to take sample of denature DNA
cells from every colony filter - wash filter paper with
radioactive probe
which will only attach
AP Biology to gene of interest
 Problems…
 Human Genome library
 are there only genes in there?
 nope! a lot of junk!

 human genomic library has more “junk”

than genes in it
 Clean up the junk!
 if you want to clone
a human gene into
bacteria, you can’t
have… introns
AP Biology
 How do you clean up the junk?
 Don’t start with DNA…
 Use mRNA
 copy of the gene without the junk!
 But in the end, you need DNA to clone into
plasmid…
 How do you go from RNA  DNA?
 reverse transcriptase from RNA viruses
 retroviruses

reverse
AP Biology transcriptase
 cDNA (copy DNA) libraries
 Collection of only the
coding sequences of
expressed genes
 extract mRNA from
cells
 reverse transcriptase
 RNA  DNA
 from retroviruses
 clone into plasmid
 Applications
 need edited DNA for
expression in bacteria
 human insulin

AP Biology
 Where do we go next….
DNA RNA protein trait

 When a gene is turned on, it creates a trait

 want to know what gene is being expressed

extract mRNA from cells How do you match mRNA

mRNA = active genes back to DNA in cells???

reverse
AP Biology transcriptase
 slide with spots of DNA
Microarrays each spot = 1 gene

 Create a slide with a sample of each gene from the

organism
 each spot is one gene
 Convert mRNA  labeled cDNA mRNA  cDNA
mRNA from cells

reverse
transcriptase

AP Biology
 slide with spots of DNA
Microarrays each spot = 1 gene

 Labeled cDNA hybridizes with DNA on slide

 each yellow spot = gene matched to mRNA
 each yellow spot = expressed gene
mRNA  cDNA cDNA matched to genomic DNA

AP Biology
 Application of Microarrays “DNA Chip”

2-color fluorescent tagging

 Comparing treatments or conditions =

Measuring change in gene expression
 sick vs. healthy; cancer vs. normal cells
 before vs. after treatment with drug
 different stages in development
 Color coding: label each condition with different color
 red = gene expression in one sample
 green = gene expression in other sample
 yellow = gene expression in both samples
AP Biology
 black = no or low expression in both
 I may be very selective…
But still Ask Questions!
EcoRI

BamHI HindIII

restriction sites

plasmid

ori amp
AP Biology resistance 2007-2008