BIO E105 Lecture Notes - Lecture 14: Reverse Transcriptase, Herbert Boyer, Fibroblast
Document Summary
Uses of recombinant dna: drug production: a case study in recombinant dna technology: insulin. Insulin is a peptide hormone, produced by the pancreas, and is central to regulating metabolism in the body. Insulin causes cells to take up glucose from the blood: the concept is simple: if insulin is a peptide (protein) hormone, then it is encoded by a gene. If you can artificially cause gene expression of the insulin peptide, you can make insulin: the first genetically-engineered human insulin was produced in a laboratory in 1977 by. Introducing novel alleles into human cells: the current vector of choice in gene therapy are retroviruses. These are viruses with an rna genome, including the enzyme reverse transcriptase: if human genes are packaged into a retrovirus, the virus is capable of inserting the human alleles into a chromosome in a target cell. Three are responding well to treatment; the fourth has died of cancer.