Life-sciences

Cloning is a biological term used to make multiple copies of a particular organism by using the asexual method. Cloning can be of different types including bacterial cloning, fission, etc. We can use the process to make multiple copies of a particular gene by using a particular vector i.e., E.coli. The most commonly used biological vectors are plasmids (extrachromosomal structures in bacteria).                                        The first animal was cloned by splitting embryos in a test tube and the resulting embryos were transferred to the womb of adult female mice. Following that, biologists produced several other animals including cows, sheep, cattle, horses, mules, ox, etc. The nucleus can be transferred to the recipient organism by using two methods. One of the methods involves the removal of the nucleus by injecting a needle and transferring it to another cell. The second metho...

Crispr stands for clustered regularly Interspaced Palindromic Regions, while cas9 is a restriction enzyme cutting DNA from a specific site. The Crispr sequences are derived from bacteriophages affecting bacteria previously, bacterium recognizes the sequences and degrades it. One of the major contributions regarding crispr-cas9 was brought about by an eminent biochemist and geneticist Jennifer Duodna and a French researcher Emmenuella Cherpentier. They were also awarded with Nobel Prize for their remarkable contributions to science in 2020. Crispr-Cas9 is one of the latest gene-editing tools to cure genetic disorders by genetic manipulation. The process takes place naturally in bacterium as a defensive mechanism against viruses. During the process, guide RNA binds with specific complementary sequence resulting in the formation of RNA-DNA hybrid, guide RNA makes sure that DNA should be cut from the specific site. Consequently, complex is degraded by the enzyme cas9. Repair mechanism...

 Antimicrobial Resistance  Antimicrobial Resistance is the ability of a microbe to resist antibiotics designed to kill or prevent the growth of the microbe. AMR is a global problem, affecting millions of people worldwide. In the United States, AMR is a serious health concern affecting around 3 million people.  Microbes attain antimicrobial resistance due to the over-dosage of antibiotics resulting in resistance to pathogens. A more important cause of antimicrobial resistance is the genetic change in the microbe's genome, which may cause antimicrobial resistance. Due to the advent of multidrug-resistant bacteria, infectious diseases are being more prevalent affecting the health system severely worldwide.  What are Superbugs Superbugs are micro-organisms resistant to a variety of antibiotics. If we are faced with the emergence of such a kind of superbug, it would be a challenge for us to control the spread of the pathogen.  How can we prevent AMR We can...

Antibiotics are the medications used to combat bacterial or even viral infection i.e., erythromycin, gentamycin,  penicillin etc. , Antibiotics are obtained from bacterial strains and are effective against variety of microbial agents. The first antibiotic discovered was penicillium isolated from a fungi called " Penicillium Notatum " by Sir Alexander Fleming in 1928. Antibiotics are proved exceptionally effective regarding the treatment of several infections including influenza virus, common cold etc. The term antibiotic indicates that they are used against living organisms. They are isolated from living organisms and used to prevent the growth of other living organisms. Antibiotics were discovered coincidentally in 1877, when Louis Pasteur observed growth inhibition by a bacterium that stopped the growth of another bacterium called  Bacillus Anthracis.     Antimicrobial Resistance:  Antimicrobial resistance is one of the most common health concern ...

What is Life? Biologically, we can call any being as living when it grows, reproduces, excretes, respond to change in the environment. Considering the said definition of life, viruses are living organisms only when they are inside a living host, as when outside the body, they are in the form of crystals. So, they depend on host metabolic machinery to reproduce or replication. They are infectious and can be spread from one organism to another through different routes of transmission, including air, aerosol droplets, sexual contact, fecal matter, etc. Viruses are of different types, some have DNA, some lack DNA and use RNA to replicate by the process of reverse transcription. One of the most popular examples of RNA viruses is AIDS (Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome)Viruses have proteins covering their genome termed as capsids. 

 Quantified Polymerase Chain Reaction PCR is one of the most common techniques employed to diagnose or find out a novel mutant sequence in any bacterial strain. Apart from diagnosis, PCR has many other applications as well, including sequencing whole genome of a new bacterial strain. Apart from conventional PCR,  many other procedures have have been invented to diagnose a certain infectious or genetic disorder.  qPCR is designed by scientists to find out the expression level of a protein. We determine the quantity of RNA produced involved to form a particular protein with the help of qPCR. How qPCR works During qPCR, a specific gene sequence is amplified by the action of reverse transcriptase. Reverse transcriptase converts mRNA into double stranded cDNA, this cDNA is amplified by using PCR. The thermal cycler used for PCR produces fluorescence to quantify the gene expression level.  Fluorometer detects the florescence in real time process is also termed as RT-P...

Nested PCR Nested PCR is one of the types of PCR designed to ensure specificity and accuracy of experiment. The main purpose of utilizing the Nested PCR is reduce the possibility of occurrence of non-specific bands.  In conventional types of PCR, there are more chances that we get non-specific bands, so Nested PCR is introduced to overcome the drawback.  Two primers are used during the said reaction. First two set of primers are used for the amplification of initial product, whereas the product acquired from the first round is used to amplify the targeted sequence by using second set set of primers. So that is quite less likely that we get any non-specific or unwanted bands contaminating our desired product. The primers of the first round are termed as the outer primers and are used to let the inner primers or nested primers to anneal to a specific DNA sequence. Outer primers are present upstream of the internal primers.  Nested PCR requires smaller number of cycles aroun...

 Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) is an in vitro biochemical reaction used in molecular biology laboratories to produce multiple copies of a specific gene sequence. A particular fragment of gene or a gene fragment is amplified by using primers complimentary to sequence needs to be amplified. The technique was first invented by a scientist Kary Mullis in 1983. The procedure functions similar to the DNA replication a natural phenomenon making multiple copies. However, in PCR, we make multiple copies of gene by using a DNA polymerase isolated from a microbe surviving hot springs " Thermus Aquaticus ", as the enzyme can withstand the high temperature needs to undergo the process of polymerization. One of the most important ingredients of the chemical reaction are primers, i.e., forward and reverse primers. Forward primers adds nucleotides in 5' to 3' direction whereas reverse primers add nucleotide from 3' to 5' direction. Primer...

The emergence of covid-19 was first reported in Wuhan city of Chine in December, 2019. The virus is a mutant form of SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) The virus is found to be highly contagious due to the presence of a spike protein that tends to bind specifically receptor sites present on lung tissue. The pandemic created an alarming situation and everything halted due to this deadly and contagious virus. There are some controversies regarding the emergence of virus, as some people assume that virus has been created by biological method by Chinese scientists with some unforeseen motives.  However, efforts are still on to completely eliminate the virus to let mankind take a breath of relief. Researchers have sequenced the whole genome of the virus, and found very unique  Genes  sequence causing the respiratory illness in human. Only 14% of the individuals have been reported with severe form of illness like respiratory failure, hypoxia. According to researches, vi...

  DNA (A Bio-molecule) DNA stands for deoxyribonucleic acid. DNA is one of the most essential bio-molecules found in living organisms. DNA is a life-defining molecule. This molecule transfers information from parent to offspring. It is involved in transferring the genetic information from one cell to next cell (mitosis).     DNA Replication is a natural phenomenon which ensures that each dividing cell is receiving the same and equal amount of information as found in the parental cell. DNA is a most fundamental molecule which has the information stored to a particular characteristic to a living organism. Most of the living organisms have DNA as a hereditary material. DNA is more stable than RNA because it has a deoxyribose sugar. Apart from that, the basic components of DNA are nucleotides made from nitrogenous base, pentose sugar, and phosphate molecule.    DNA has three basic elements in its chemical structure i.e. 5-carbon ribose sugar, Phosphate, an...

   Coronavirus Infectious Disease-2019 Covid-19 is a newly emerged highly infectious strain affecting around million of people around the globe. It is termed as corona due to its crown like shape. It is carrying spike proteins with specific gene sequence that is responsible for causing the infectious condition. Spike proteins penetrate the specific cell to cause the infection. Due to the presence of specific mutations, the infectivity rate of the pathogen is higher as compared to other members of coronavirus family.  Various strains of covid-19 are being emerged due to acclimatization and genetic changes due to the failure of mankind to fight with the infection. 

DNA (Deoxyribonucleic Acid) As we all know DNA is a hereditary material, and carries all the necessary information related to cells. It has information that will be transferred to the next cell. DNA controls all the activities taking place inside a cell. Information stored in DNA is processed or we can say it is in raw form that needs to be processed in the form of mRNA, so that a functional product can be produced. Enzymes, many Hormones are made up of the information stored in the form of Genes.   What is a Gene? Gene consists of a combination of multiple nucleotides involved to make up a protein. Gene Sequence determines any character or a trait of any living being. For example insulin is a protein made up by a specific gene sequence. Gene is transcribed into mRNA (Transcription). A codon consisting of 3 nucleotides binds with an anticodon carrying an amino acid (Translation). So, Genes are involved to make a protein or a trait like they may cause diseases i.e., sickle cell anem...

Cell: A basic unit of life As we all must be familiar with the term cell, a basic unit of life. Here, one question comes to our mind is that what is life. Biologically, life is when any being grows, reproduces, produces energy by metabolic chemical reaction, excretes or respond to changes in the environment is regarded as a living being. Basically, there are two types of cells i.e., Prokaryotic and Eukaryotic cell.  Prokaryotic Cell Prokaryotes are types of cells that first originated on earth. They don't have nuclear envelop surrounding the genetic material. Genetic material is termed as nucleoid. It is suspended in the cytoplasm. Prokaryotic ribosomes are smaller in size i.e., 70S. Smaller ribosomal subunit 50S and 30S. Bacteria and Archaea are the examples of prokaryotes.   Eukaryotic cells Eukaryotes contain nuclear envelop around their cell separating the cell from cytoplasmic nucleases and other DNA degrading enzymes. The ribosomal size is 80S i.e., 60S an...