Reproductive cloning involves the asexual reproduction of organisms - it is designed to make genetic copies of an original organism.

• Cloning Plants
• Cloning trees the old fashioned way, by grafting From Washington State University.
• Cloning Plants by Tissue Culture (African Violets)
• Chapter 28, pg 342-2, Biotechnology 28.1 (New Routes to Plant Reproduction)
• Cloning animals
• Cloning Mammals - Chapter 8, pg 139, fig 8.3
• Cloning Dolly
• The Cloning of Dolly the sheep from Access Excellence
• Dolly Was Lucky Scientists warn that cloning is too dangerous for people from sciencenews.org, Oct. 20, 2001 issue
• Scientists Successfully Clone Cat from National Geographic News
• Theraputic cloning
• Explanation of cloning from the Association of Reproductive Health care Professionals
• News items dealing with cloning and stem cells from newscientist.com
• House hearings turn skeptical eye on cloning from cnn.com
• Cloning dead animals?
• Oct. 20, 2001 issue - Cloning a dead sheep
• Chapter 17, Pg 325, Biotechnology 17.1, (Cloning a Mammoth)

Recombinant DNA Technology

• Recombinant DNA Technology refers to molecular techniques that are used to insert DNA (genes) from one type of organism to another. For instance, the human gene for insulin production can be inserted into the DNA of a bacterial cell. The bacterial cell will then divide to produce many new bacterial cells, each with the gene for human insulin faithfully replicated. The bacteria then produces human insulin that can be harvested and used to treat people with diabetes.
• Bacteria have one large circular chromosome and several small circular pieces of DNA called plasmids.
• Plasmids are naturally transferred from one bacterial cell to another. This is one way that bacteria can share genetic information in a primitive form of sex.
• Foreign genes can be artificially added to plasmids and placed into bacteria.
• Restriction enzymes that cut DNA at very specific base sequences are used to cut open bacterial plasmids and the genes to be transferred leaving complementary "sticky ends" of DNA that allow the plasmid DNA and foreign DNA to be stuck together using an enzyme called ligase.
• See Lewis' Text Chapter 13, pg 258-9, Biotechnology 13.2, (Recombinant DNA)
• Recombinant plasmids
• Incorporationg recombinant plasmids in bacteria
• Antibiotic Resistance in Bacteria - Plasmids
• Inserting a DNA Sample into a Plasmid (Access Excellence)
• Plasmid Insertion (Access Excellence)
• Transfer and Cloning of the Insulin Gene (Access Excellence)

• Examples of Restriction Enzymes

Transgenic Organisms, AKA Genetically Modified Organisms.

• Transgenic is the word used to describe any organism which carries the genes (DNA) of another organism. Recombinant bacterial plasmids are one example, but the term is broad enough to include plants and animals that carry genes artificially inserted from another organism by any of a variety of methods.
• Transgenic rabbitChapter 13 pg 256-7, Biotechnology 13.3, (Transgenes and Gene Therapy)
• Cloning and Transgenic Animals )From Access Excellence

Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR)

• The polymerase Chain Reaction is a biotechnology technique used to replicate or "amplify" a very specific portion of a much greater sample of DNA. The technique is similar to using a search engine like Google to find a specific document on the web and then print out many copies.
• Try this exercise and see what happens. Use Google.com to do an advanced search of the web for this exact phrase, "Biology 100 and 101 are general education courses".
• What popped up? Google found that one document out of the millions of documents on the web using only 11 words and numbers.
• DNA primers of similar length used in the polymerase chain reaction can find one specific section of DNA or a specific gene among all the DNA of all 23 pairs of chromosomes and mitochondrial DNA in a DNA sample from a person. The technique uses laboratory constructed DNA primers that match specific, sequences of DNA known to precede and follow the section of DNA one wants to amplify. The primers are similar to the phrase you used to find the class web page. Once the primers locate the section of DNA the enzyme Taq polymerase, a DNA replication enzyme from Thermus aquaticus, a bacterium that lives in boiling hot springs in Yellowsone National Park, uses DNA nucleotides supplied by the researchers to produce billions of copies of that section of DNA in a matter of a few hours.
• Chapter 12, Biotechnology 12.3, PCR: An Application of Understanding DNA Replication, pgs 234-5
• Polymerase Chain Reaction Animation from:
• the Alternate Crops & Systems Lab of the United States Department of Agriculture
• POLYMERASE CHAIN REACTION from:
• Genetic Engineering Chapter of the MICROBIOLOGY 101/102 INTERNET TEXT by DR. RONALD E. HURLBERT from Washington State Unversity.
• PCR Diagram from The National Institutes of Healh

PCR is used to amplify DNA for several purposes:

• DNA from small samples of blood, tissue, or bodily fluids can be amplified for analysis in criminal cases.
• The "CSI" crime lab
• Mitochondrial DNA from bone fragments and teeth can be used to identify relationships of the dead person to living realatives or ethnic groups.
• Nuclear DNA from the victims of the September 11th attack on the World Trade Center are being compared to DNA samples from living relatives or hair or other tissue samples supplied by families of the missing.
• PCR primers matching DNA of specific species of organisms or viruses can be used to identify the presence of the organism or virus. Such tests are used to test for the presence of HIV in a blood sample or Anthrax spores on postal equipment.
• See Lewis, pg 238 for other examples.