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Transgene

 

 
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Transgene
 
 
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A transgene is a gene
Gene

A gene is the basic unit of heredity in a living organism. All living things depend on genes. Genes hold the information to build and maintain their cell and pass genetic trait to offspring....
 or genetic
Genetics

Genetics , a discipline of biology, is the science of heredity and Genetic variation in living organisms. The fact that living things inherit traits from their parents has been used since prehistoric times to improve crop plants and animals through selective breeding....
 material that has been transferred naturally or by any of a number of genetic engineering
Genetic engineering

Engineering There are a number of ways through which genetic engineering is accomplished. Essentially, the process has five main steps# Isolation of the genes of interest...
 techniques from one organism to another.

In its most precise usage, the term transgene describes a segment of DNA
DNA

Deoxyribonucleic acid is a nucleic acid that contains the genetics instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms and some viruses....
 containing a gene sequence that has been isolated from one organism and is introduced into a different organism. This non-native segment of DNA may retain the ability to produce RNA
RNA

Ribonucleic acid is a type of molecule that consists of a long chain of nucleotide units. Each nucleotide consists of a nucleobase, a ribose sugar, and a phosphate....
 or protein
Protein

Proteins are organic compounds made of amino acids arranged in a linear chain and joined together by peptide bonds between the carboxyl and amino groups of adjacent amino acid Residue ....
 in the transgenic organism, or it may alter the normal function of the transgenic organism's genetic code.






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Encyclopedia


A transgene is a gene
Gene

A gene is the basic unit of heredity in a living organism. All living things depend on genes. Genes hold the information to build and maintain their cell and pass genetic trait to offspring....
 or genetic
Genetics

Genetics , a discipline of biology, is the science of heredity and Genetic variation in living organisms. The fact that living things inherit traits from their parents has been used since prehistoric times to improve crop plants and animals through selective breeding....
 material that has been transferred naturally or by any of a number of genetic engineering
Genetic engineering

Engineering There are a number of ways through which genetic engineering is accomplished. Essentially, the process has five main steps# Isolation of the genes of interest...
 techniques from one organism to another.

In its most precise usage, the term transgene describes a segment of DNA
DNA

Deoxyribonucleic acid is a nucleic acid that contains the genetics instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms and some viruses....
 containing a gene sequence that has been isolated from one organism and is introduced into a different organism. This non-native segment of DNA may retain the ability to produce RNA
RNA

Ribonucleic acid is a type of molecule that consists of a long chain of nucleotide units. Each nucleotide consists of a nucleobase, a ribose sugar, and a phosphate....
 or protein
Protein

Proteins are organic compounds made of amino acids arranged in a linear chain and joined together by peptide bonds between the carboxyl and amino groups of adjacent amino acid Residue ....
 in the transgenic organism, or it may alter the normal function of the transgenic organism's genetic code. In general, the DNA is incorporated into the organism's germ line. For example, in higher vertebrates this can be accomplished by injecting the foreign DNA into the nucleus
Cell nucleus

In cell biology, the nucleus , also sometimes referred to as the "control center", is a membrane-enclosed organelle found in all eukaryote cell ....
 of a fertilized ovum
Ovum

An ovum is a haploid female reproductive cell or gamete. Both animals and embryophytes have ova. The term ovule is used for the young ovum of an animal, as well as the plant structure that carries the female gametophyte and egg cell and develops into a seed after fertilization....
. This technique is routinely used to introduce human disease genes or other genes of interest into strains of laboratory mice
House mouse

The House Mouse is one of the most numerous species of the genus Mus commonly termed a mouse. It is a small mammal and a rodent. In most parts of the world, they live in close proximity to humans....
 to study the function or pathology
Pathology

Pathology is the study and diagnosis of disease through examination of Organ , tissue , bodily fluids and whole bodies . The term also encompasses the related science study of disease processes, called General pathology....
 involved with that particular gene.

In looser usage, transgene can describe any DNA sequence, regardless of whether it contains a gene coding sequence or it has been artificially constructed, which has been introduced into an organism or vector
Vector (biology)

In epidemiology, a vector is an organism that does not cause disease itself but that transmits infection by conveying pathogens from one Host to another, serving as a transmission ....
 construct in which it was previously not found.

In practical terms, a transgene can be either a cDNA (complementary DNA) segment, which is a copy of mRNA (messenger RNA), or the gene itself residing in its original region of genomic DNA. The difference between these two lies in the fact that the cDNA has been processed to remove intron
Intron

Introns, derived from the term "intragenic regions" and also called intervening sequence , are DNA regions in a gene that are not translated into proteins....
s and also, usually, does not include the regulatory signals
Regulation of gene expression

Gene modulation redirects here. For information on therapeutic regulation of gene expression, see therapeutic gene modulation.Regulation of gene expression includes the processes that cell s and viruses use to turn the information on genes into gene products....
 that are embedded around and in the gene. The advent of annotated cloned regions of the genome alongside the genome sequence, in particular as large clones in BACs
Bacterial artificial chromosome

A 'bacterial artificial chromosome ' is a DNA construct, based on a fertility plasmid , used for Transformation and cloning in bacterium, usually E....
 (bacterial artificial chromosomes) or fosmid
Fosmid

Fosmids are similar to cosmids but are based on the bacterial F-plasmid. The cloning vector is limited, as a host can only contain one fosmid molecule....
s, and recombineering
Recombineering

Recombineering is a genetic and molecular biology technique based on homologous recombination systems in E. coli to modify DNA. The procedure is widely used in the generation of target vectors for making conditional mouse knockout....
, which is the method that permits the engineering of these large clones, has changed the practice of transgenesis from its origins with cDNA-based constructs towards the more reliable genomic-based constructs.

See also


  • Genetic engineering
    Genetic engineering

    Engineering There are a number of ways through which genetic engineering is accomplished. Essentially, the process has five main steps# Isolation of the genes of interest...
  • Genetically-modified organism
  • Transgenic plant
    Transgenic plant

    Transgenic plants possess a gene or genes that have been transferred from a different species. Although DNA of another species can be integrated in a plant genome by natural processes, the term "transgenic plants" refers to plants created in a laboratory using recombinant DNA technology....
  • Chimera (genetics)
    Chimera (genetics)

    Typically seen in zoology , a chimera is an animal that has two or more different populations of genetically distinct cell that originated in different zygotes; if the different cells emerged from the same zygote, it is called a mosaicism....
  • Gene pool
    Gene pool

    In population genetics, a gene pool is the complete set of unique alleles in a species or population....
  • Gene flow
    Gene flow

    In population genetics, gene flow is the transfer of alleles of genes from one population to another.Migration into or out of a population may be responsible for a marked change in allele frequencies ....
  • Introgression
    Introgression

    Introgression, in genetics , is the movement of a gene from one species into the gene pool of another by backcrossing an interspecific hybrid with one of its parents....
  • Hybridization