Target Exam

CUET

Subject

Biology

Chapter

Biotechnology -Principles and Processes

Question:

Biolistics (gene gun) is suitable for:

Options:

Introducing rDNA into plant cells

Introducing rDNA into animal cells

Disarming the pathogen vectors

DNA fingerprinting

Correct Answer:

Introducing rDNA into plant cells

Explanation:

The correct answer is Option (1) → Introducing rDNA into plant cells

There are several methods to introduce alien DNA into host cells. One such method which is  suitable for plants, cells are bombarded with high-velocity micro-particles of gold or tungsten coated with DNA. This method is known as biolistics or gene gun.

Another method is  micro-injection, where recombinant DNA is directly injected into the nucleus of an animal cell.

The third method involves the use of "disarmed pathogen" vectors. In this approach, vectors derived from pathogens, such as Agrobacterium tumefaciens for plants or retroviruses for animals, are modified to be non-pathogenic. When these vectors infect the host cells, they transfer the recombinant DNA into the host's genome.

The technique of DNA Fingerprinting was initially developed by Alec Jeffreys. He used a satellite DNA as probe that shows very high degree of polymorphism. DNA fingerprinting involves identifying differences in some specific regions in DNA sequence called as repetitive DNA, because in these sequences, a small stretch of DNA is repeated many times. These repetitive DNA are separated from bulk genomic DNA as different peaks during density gradient centrifugation. The bulk DNA forms a major peak and the other small peaks are referred to as satellite DNA.