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The Importance Of Genetic Transformation

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Genetic transformation is when an organism is given genes that it is able to express from the foreign DNA (Weedman 111). Genetic transformation is used widely today, especially in agriculture where organisms are genetically altered to meet the food demands from corns color to squash size. When transferring genes you need a competent cell which is the cell that is going to express the foreign DNA (Weedman 111). There are three ways to transfer DNA, transformation where the competent cell takes DNA from the surrounding environment, conjugation where two bacteria join and transfer DNA, and then there is transduction where virus or vector carries DNA from a foreign organism to another (hammiverse.com...na). In our experiment we used transduction, using a vector. There are three ways to make the competent cell permeable. There is projectile bombardment when a gene gun is used to coat the competent cell with DNA, there is electroporation when electric pulses are used to increase permeability and then there is heat shock when you rapidly change the temperature of the environment the competent cell is in from low to high temperatures making the permeability of the cell membrane more profound (Weedman 111). We used the heat shock method in our experiment to increase the permeability of E.coli. In the case of our experiment the competent cell is E.coli. E.coli is known for its ability of horizontal gene transfer which is the transfer of genes from a foreign organism and is not

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