Essays on Horizontal Gene Transfer

Genetic engineering is a boon to the food sector. Plants and animals are genetically modified (GM) to increase the yield, make them disease or pest tolerant and ensure nutritious food is available to all. There may be a chance for the introduced genes to pass through the food to the consumer but any harm it can cause can only be judged based on the food’s toxic or allergic properties. Unless direct evidence linking negative health impact to consumption of GM food is available, GM foods need not be prohibited. Companies have the moral duty to inform consumers about any food ...

Introduction

Scientists have discovered a way of turning off genes so as to provide room for studying how cells work and other aspects of the cells. The discovery has been deemed to be a major success towards a news technology in studying the biochemical pathways and interactions that occur in cells hence facilitating normal development as well as disease progression. Norris (Para. 1) points out that, scientists at UC San Francisco have made this major breakthrough of turning off genes in cells. They indicate that the ability to turn off genes will pave way to increase in research and making of discoveries in ...

Environmental and Nutritional Requirements of Lactobacillus casei

Lactobacillus species have attracted considerable attention during the past few years due to the health benefits to the gastrointestinal tract when they are added as probiotics to food products such as yogurt and other fermented milk drinks (Broadbent, Larsen, Deibel, & Steele, 2010). In general, Lactobacillus species exhibit very complex nutritional and environmental requirements for optimal growth. Particularly, Lactobacillus casei is a rod shaped, aciduric (prefers acidic environments), facultative (capable of living in aerobic or anaerobic conditions) and mesophilic (temperature range between 15-40°C) lactic acid bacterium. These characteristics allow its isolation from different environments including fermented milk, meat or vegetable ...

Introduction:

Phylogenetic tree also known as evolutionary tree depicts the connection between various species of animals and plants based on their physical and genetic traits. Top points of the trees symbolize descendent common species whereas nodes symbolize common ancestor of descendents. Phylogenetic trees very effectively show the evolution that took place by adaptive and sudden ancestry splits. The Phylogenetic trees can be classified mainly in four types rooted tree, un-rooted tree, bifurcating tree and special tree types.

The basal universal phylogenetic tree inferred from comparative analyses of rRNA sequences.

1. Horizontally acquired variations – Horizontal acquire variations occurs due to horizontal gene transfer. Horizontal gene transfer also known as lateral gene transfer is a ...