New Insights into the Applications of Viruses to Biotechnology

Overview

Overview

Crop cultivation has a long history in human civilization, with records showing the cultivation of cereal plants beginning at around 8000 BC. This early plant breeding was developed primarily to provide a steady supply of food.

Recombinant DNA technology called transgenesis is often used to add a foreign gene or remove a detrimental gene from an organism. Such genetically modified organisms are called transgenic organisms.
The first-ever transgenic plant was a tobacco plant developed in 1983 that showed resistance against the tobacco mosaic virus. Since then, many transgenic plants have been developed and commercialized for improving the agricultural, ornamental, and horticultural value of a crop plant. Transgenic...

A mutation is a change in the sequence of bases of DNA or RNA in a genome. Some mutations occur during replication of the genome due to errors made by the polymerase enzymes that replicate DNA or RNA. Unlike DNA polymerase, RNA polymerase is prone to errors because it is not capable of “proofreading” its work. Viruses with RNA-based genomes, like HIV, therefore accrue mutations faster than viruses with DNA-based genomes. Because mutation and recombination provide the raw material...

The central dogma explains the flow of genetic information from DNA nucleotides to the amino acid sequence of proteins.
RNA is the Missing Link Between DNA and Proteins
In the early 1900s, scientists discovered that DNA stores all the information needed for cellular functions and that proteins perform most of these functions. However, the mechanisms of converting genetic information into functional proteins remained unknown for many years. Initially, it was believed that a single gene is...