NCERT Class 12 Books Biology Chapter 11- Biotechnology: Principles and Processes

NCERT Class 12 Books Biology Chapter 11- Biotechnology: Principles and Processes is accessible here for download purposes. You can download the PDF for and learn from the book anytime you want. Students who are studying in Class 12 and candidates who are preparing for competitive exams can download the PDF for NCERT Class 12 Books Biology Chapter 11- Biotechnology: Principles and Processes to learn from the reading material.  

Taking these course books as a reference can be really helpful to prepare for any sought exam. You can keep the digital form of the book handy and learn from it without any time constraints.

Free Demo Classes

Register here for Free Demo Classes

Select Course CUET Digital Marketing NDA Graphics Designing MS Excel (10 Hrs.) Interview Skill Course Entrepreneurship Programme Content Writing

At safalta, you can access FREE E-BOOKS. These books are not just free of cost, but they are also packed with ample knowledge and information related to your studies.

We also provide FREE MOCK PAPERS, which can help you test your own yourself. These papers can help you prepare for your exams in a better way.

Here, you can learn the NCERT Class 12 Books Biology Chapter 11- Biotechnology: Principles and Processes. Moreover, you can get the links for other Chapter 11s to download the links. 

BIOTECHNOLOGY : PRINCIPLES AND PROCESSES

Biotechnology deals with techniques of using live organisms or enzymes from organisms to produce products and processes useful to humans. In this sense, making curd, bread or wine, which are all microbe-mediated processes, could also be thought as a form of biotechnology. However, it is used in a restricted sense today, to refer to such of those processes which use genetically modified organisms to achieve the same on a larger scale. Further, many other processes/techniques are also included under biotechnology. For example, in vitro fertilisation leading to a ‘test-tube’ baby, synthesising a gene and using it, developing a DNA vaccine or correcting a defective gene, are all part of biotechnology.

The European Federation of Biotechnology (EFB) has given a definition of biotechnology that encompasses both traditional view and modern molecular biotechnology.

The definition given by EFB is as follows: ‘The integration of natural science and organisms, cells, parts thereof, and molecular analogues for products and services’.

11.1 PRINCIPLES OF BIOTECHNOLOGY

Among many, the two core techniques that enabled birth of modern biotechnology are :

(i) Genetic engineering : Techniques to alter the chemistry of genetic material (DNA and RNA), to introduce these into host organisms and thus change the phenotype of the host organism.

(ii) Bioprocess engineering: Maintenance of sterile (microbial contamination-free) ambience in chemical engineering processes to enable growth of only the desired microbe/eukaryotic cell in large quantities for the manufacture of biotechnological products like antibiotics, vaccines, enzymes, etc.

Let us now understand the conceptual development of the principles of genetic engineering.

You probably appreciate the advantages of sexual reproduction over asexual reproduction. The former provides opportunities for variations and formulation of unique combinations of genetic setup, some of which may be beneficial to the organism as well as the population. Asexual reproduction preserves the genetic information, while sexual reproduction permits variation. Traditional hybridisation procedures used in plant and animal breeding, very often lead to inclusion and multiplication of undesirable genes along with the desired genes. The techniques of genetic engineering which include creation of recombinant DNA, use of gene cloning and gene transfer, overcome this limitation and allows us to isolate and introduce only one or a set of desirable genes without introducing undesirable genes into the target organism.

Do you know the likely fate of a piece of DNA, which is somehow transferred into an alien organism? Most likely, this piece of DNA would not be able to multiply itself in the progeny cells of the organism. But, when it gets integrated into the genome of the recipient, it may multiply and be inherited along with the host DNA. This is because the alien piece of DNA has become part of a chromosome, which has the ability to replicate. In a chromosome there is a specific DNA sequence called the origin of replication, which is responsible for initiating replication. Therefore, for the multiplication of any alien piece of DNA in an organism it needs to be a part of a chromosome(s) which has a specific sequence known as ‘origin of replication’. Thus, an alien DNA is linked with the origin of replication, so that, this alien piece of DNA can replicate and multiply itself in the host organism. This can also be called as cloning or making multiple identical copies of any template DNA.

Let us now focus on the first instance of the construction of an artificial recombinant DNA molecule. The construction of the first recombinant DNA emerged from the possibility of linking a gene encoding antibiotic resistance with a native plasmid (autonomously replicating circular extra-chromosomal DNA) of Salmonella typhimurium. Stanley Cohen and Herbert Boyer accomplished this in 1972 by isolating the antibiotic resistance gene by cutting out a piece of DNA from a plasmid which was responsible for conferring antibiotic resistance. The cutting of DNA at specific locations became possible with the discovery of the so-called ‘molecular scissors’– restriction enzymes. The cut piece of DNA was then linked with the plasmid DNA. These plasmid DNA act as vectors to transfer the piece of DNA attached to it. You probably know that mosquito acts as an insect vector to transfer the malarial parasite into human body. In the same way, a plasmid can be used as vector to deliver an alien piece of DNA into the host organism. The linking of antibiotic resistance gene with the plasmid vector became possible with the enzyme DNA ligase, which acts on cut DNA molecules and joins their ends. This makes a new combination of circular autonomously replicating DNA created in vitro and is known as recombinant DNA. When this DNA is transferred into Escherichia coli, a bacterium closely related to Salmonella, it could replicate using the new host’s DNA polymerase enzyme and make multiple copies. The ability to multiply copies of antibiotic resistance gene in E. coli was called cloning of antibiotic resistance gene in E. coli.  

You can hence infer that there are three basic steps in genetically modifying an organism —

(i) identification of DNA with desirable genes;

(ii) introduction of the identified DNA into the host;

(iii) maintenance of introduced DNA in the host and transfer of the DNA to its progeny.

11.2 TOOLS OF RECOMBINANT DNA TECHNOLOGY

Now we know from the foregoing discussion that genetic engineering or recombinant DNA technology can be accomplished only if we have the key tools, i.e., restriction enzymes, polymerase enzymes, ligases, vectors and the host organism. Let us try to understand some of these in detail.

11.2.1 Restriction Enzymes

In the year 1963, the two enzymes responsible for restricting the growth of bacteriophage in Escherichia coli were isolated. One of these added methyl groups to DNA, while the other cut DNA. The later was called restriction endonuclease.

The first restriction endonuclease–Hind II, whose functioning depended on a specific DNA nucleotide sequence was isolated and characterised five years later. It was found that Hind II always cut DNA molecules at a particular point by recognising a specific sequence of six base pairs. This specific base sequence is known as the recognition sequence for Hind II. Besides Hind II, today we know more than 900 restriction enzymes that have been isolated from over 230 strains of bacteria each of which recognise different recognition sequences.

The convention for naming these enzymes is the first letter of the name comes from the genus and the second two letters come from the species of the prokaryotic cell from which they were isolated, e.g., EcoRI comes from Escherichia coli RY 13. In EcoRI, the letter ‘R’ is derived from the name of strain. Roman numbers following the names indicate the order in which the enzymes were isolated from that strain of bacteria.

Restriction enzymes belong to a larger class of enzymes called nucleases. These are of two kinds; exonucleases and endonucleases. Exonucleases remove nucleotides from the ends of the DNA whereas, endonucleases make cuts at specific positions within the DNA. Each restriction endonuclease functions by ‘inspecting’ the length of a DNA sequence. Once it finds its specific recognition sequence, it will bind to the DNA and cut each of the two strands of the double helix at specific points in their sugar -phosphate backbones (Figure 11.1). Each restriction endonuclease recognises a specific palindromic nucleotide sequences in the DNA.  
NCERT Class 12 Books Biology Chapter 11- Biotechnology: Principles and Processes- PDF Download

Chapter 11: Biotechnology: Principles and Processes

अध्याय 11: जैव प्रौद्योगिकी – सिद्धांत व प्रक्रम Safalta provides the latest NCERT course books for all the major subjects of Class 12. A team of proficient teachers drafts these matters in a precise and thorough manner. You can download the PDFs for all the subjects in a Chapter 11-wise format.

These Books are very effective in preparing for annual exams. Here is the PDF for NCERT Class 12 Books Biology Chapter 11- Biotechnology: Principles and Processes.