What is gene targeting in embryonic stem cells?
Introduction
Gene targeting in the embryonic stem cells through homologous recombination techniques revolutionises the whole scientific society. Now with this approach we can manipulate the gene of any organism in the embryonic stage itself and we can replace any mutated gene with the correct one and can cure the inborn errors.
Homologous recombination: It is the type of recombination in which the genetic information between the two homologous chromosomes gets exchanged. During the meiosis also the homologous recombination takes place between the chromosomes of maternal and paternal origin. In that crossing over between homologous chromosomes takes place and genetic information gets exchanged.
Stem cells: these cells are those cells which are undifferentiated cells and they can produce cells of any kind by undergoing differentiation process. These cells are also called totipotent cells in plants and pleuripotent cells in animals. Totipotent stem cells can produce cells of any kind for example meristematic cells etc. while pleuripotent stem cells can only produce cells of limited types only for example hematopoietic stem cells etc.
Answer
By the gene targeting techniques we can produce Knock Out and Knock Down mouse by manipulation the genes of the embryonic stem cells in the mouse. In the knock down process we generally suppress the expression of desired gene of the test mouse with the help of homologous recombination this is the temporary way to suppress any gene expression where as in the Knock out process we stopped the expression of desired gene permanently with the help of gene targeting.
Through gene targeting we can also cause over-expression of any desired gene which we want to.
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