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Genetic Transformation Lab

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Genetic transformation occurs when an organism is modified by the introduction of new genetic information which is then incorporated into the organism’s genome. In this lab, engineered proteins containing DNA to absorb blue light and emit green light were incorporated into E.coli bacteria. The main purpose of this lab was to transform E. coli by forcing it to uptake plasmid containing an ampicillin resistance gene and a green fluorescent protein (GFP) using complementation (adding antibiotic resistance in addition to weed out non-transformed cells). To see the effects of this plasmid on cells, bacteria treated with the plasmid were grown 3 different growth mediums: agar, agar/ampicillin(+), agar/ ampicillin(+)/PTG(+). With the plates prepared, …show more content…

The transformation efficiency is the efficiency by which cells can take up extracellular DNA and express genes encoded by it. The results from this lab show that this efficiency was 0. There was no ramification of findings for this lab because the expected results were not obtained. If there were successful outcomes, more research on gene insertion in bacteria for insulin production and cancer research could have been further built upon. Since the transformation efficiency calculation was 0, there were many errors that have arisen. The main problem was there was no control growth, which means there was a bacterial problem with the culture. Another error could have been problems with the broth and CaCl2 solutions. With regards to the GFP protein and its ability to be tracked using UV light, is there another protein out there that scientists and doctors can track without using a UV light,

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