Question

HOW the desired traits, like bioluminescence, can be transferred from the species where they originally found to other, target species?

Answer 1

Bioluminescence - It is the production/emission of light by an organism. Some animals like jelly fish, firefly and some fungi can emit a specific light at a specific wavelength. In nature it is used to camouflage, burglar alarm, misdirection and mate attraction.

This property of an organism can transfer to another organism through biotechnology as a reporter gene.

Reporter gene is used to confirm the transmission of a target gene into an organism.

For this , The bioluminescence gene such as GFP ( green fluorescent protein ) found in jelly fish ( Aequorea victoria ) is extracted by restrictive enzymes and the promoter is removed. Only the protein coding region is used .

After this, Target gene protein coding sequence is join with GFP sequence with the enzyme ligase and the promoter is joined upstream.

The promoter must be of host system and constitutive promoter is used.

Now Transgenic sequence is incorporated into the host cell protoplasm. Some amount of calcium is add to facilitate the incorporation of the sequence into the cell.

This transgenic sequence constitutes = Host cell constitutive promoter + GFP sequence + target sequence.

So, the amount of GFP is measured which is a reporter. From the GFP we can quantify the transcription pf the target gene.