2006 AIPMT-PRE Biotechnology: Principles and ProcessesTools of Recombinant DNA Technology Easy Question 4 of 5 in Tools of Recombinant DNA Technology

Two microbes found to be very useful in genetic engineering are -

A Escherichia coli and Agrobacterium tumefaciens
B Vibrio cholerae and a tailed bacteriophage
C Diplococcus sp. and Pseudomonas sp.
D Crown gall bacterium and Caenorhabditis elegans

The answer is A.

Solution

Escherichia coli is the most widely used host in genetic engineering. Its plasmids, such as pBR322, are used as cloning vectors, its restriction enzyme EcoRI is used to cut DNA, and it multiplies rapidly to produce the cloned gene or its product (for example human insulin).
Agrobacterium tumefaciens is a soil bacterium that causes crown gall disease in dicot plants. It naturally transfers a piece of DNA, the T-DNA of its Ti (tumour inducing) plasmid, into the plant genome.
The Ti plasmid has been modified into a cloning vector that is no longer pathogenic but can still deliver genes of interest into plants; Agrobacterium is therefore called the natural genetic engineer of plants.
Caenorhabditis elegans is a nematode, not a microbe used as a tool in this sense.
Vibrio cholerae and Diplococcus are not standard tools of genetic engineering.
So the two very useful microbes are Escherichia coli and Agrobacterium tumefaciens.

Concept Microbes used in genetic engineering

Tools of Recombinant DNA Technology in past papers

5 questions from this chapter have appeared across 5 exam years.