Tuesday, February 1, 2011

GM Crops, in your shops?

Background:   
     GMOs is an acronym for Genetically Modified Organisms. In the present era, GMOs are mainly in the agricultural industry and business. Scientists genetically modify plants to make to improve the agricultural industry, both business wise and health wise.
     First there is a Tumor Inducing (Ti) plasmid which we insert a Gene of Interest (G.O.I.). After the plasmid including the G.O.I. has been made, it is put into an agrobacteria which is then inserted into a plant cell, which grows, and eventually becomes a GM Plant.
     In order to Identify if an organism is genetically modified, we use Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR). PCR includes: DNA polymerase, usage of a Primer, Nucleotides, and DNA.
     The controversy regarding GMO include: religions, who believe God's creatures should not be tampered with, and to let nature do its order of things. Vegetarians, who find it wrong to put the cold resistant gene ( from fish) into plants
Purpose:  
  The purpose of this lab is to identify the difference between a organic product and a genetically modified product.
     Real world applications include the usage of different crops to determine the genotype difference, which cannot be seen through the phenotype.
Procedure:
       First we extract the DNA, by first mashing the product, then placing it into near boiling point water as to break apart the cell membrane. After the cell membrane is broken we have to put in a Instagene Matrix, which kills the hostile pacman type protein called DNAse which destroys foreign DNA from entering and infecting the plants. Then on the second day we shall use two primers to determine the genetic makeup of the plant, and both primers used for a control type organic plant versus a control of genetically modified plant.  Then using Gel Electrophoresis we will determine whether or not the plant was genetically modified or not, by looking whether or not the specific gene shows up or doesn't show up.
   
     We are testing for the possibility of a genetically modified food to see if it genetically modified or if it is organic, and possibly in future determine what was changed or added.
Hypothesis: 
    I predict that, the genetically modified plant product will show up as genetically modified and we will be able to determine which one it is.  
Results:
     We got the results of gel electrophoresis, and it resulted that our test food, lettuce, was in fact a gmo food, the band length of the lettuce was the same length with the dna with GMO+ primers, and we were able to derive that it was identical, therefore ensuring the fact that it was genetically modified.
Sources of Error:
     Sources of error include, puncturing of the gel, mispipetting into the gel, over or under the time limit of gel electrophoresis.

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