Biotechnology Fundamentals Third Edition

Firdos Alam Khan

• Publisher: CRC Press
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000041484
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Medicina
• Subtopic: Biotecnologia in medicina

After successful launching of first and second editions of Biotechnology Fundamentals, we thought let us find out the feedbacks from our esteemed readers, faculty members, and students about their experiences and after receiving their suggestions and recommendation we thought it would be great idea to write 3rd edition of the book. Being a teacher of biotechnology, I always wanted a book which covers all aspects of biotechnology, right from basics to applied and industrial levels. In our previous editions, we have included all topics of biotechnology which are important and fundamentals for students learning. One of the important highlights of the book that it has dedicated chapter for the career aspects of biotechnology and you may agree that many students eager to know what are career prospects they have in biotechnology. There are a great number of textbooks available that deal with molecular biotechnology, microbial biotechnology, industrial biotechnology, agricultural biotechnology, medical biotechnology, or animal biotechnology independently; however, there is not a single book available that deals with all aspects of biotechnology in one book. Today the field of biotechnology is moving with lightening speed. It becomes very important to keep track of all those new information which affect the biotechnology field directly or indirectly. In this book, I have tried to include all the topics which are directly or indirectly related to fields of biotechnology. The book discusses both conventional and modern aspects of biotechnology with suitable examples and gives the impression that the field of biotechnology is there for ages with different names; you may call them plant breeding, cheese making, in vitro fertilization, alcohol fermentation is all the fruits of biotechnology. The primary aim of this book is to help the students to learn biotechnology with classical and modern approaches and take them from basic information to complex topics. There is a total of 21 chapters in this textbook covering topics ranging from an introduction to biotechnology, genes to genomics, protein to proteomics, recombinant DNA technology, microbial biotechnology, agricultural biotechnology, animal biotechnology, environmental biotechnology, medical biotechnology, nanobiotechnology, product development in biotechnology, industrial biotechnology, forensic science, regenerative medicine, biosimialars, synthetic biology, biomedical engineering, computational biology, ethics in biotechnology, careers in biotechnology, and laboratory tutorials. All chapters begin with a brief summary followed by text with suitable examples. Each chapter illustrated by simple line diagrams, pictures, and tables. Each chapter concludes with a question session, assignment, and field trip information. I have included laboratory tutorials as a separate chapter to expose the students to various laboratory techniques and laboratory protocols. This practical information would be an added advantage to the students while they learn the theoretical aspects of biotechnology.

1 Introduction to Biotechnology

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

• Define biotechnology
• Discuss the historical perspectives of biotechnology
• Explain the classifications of biotechnology based on its applications
• Explain how biotechnology has revolutionized the healthcare, agricultural, and environmental sectors
• Explain how biotechnology became the science of integration of diverse fields
• Explain ethical issues in biotechnology

1.1 WHAT IS BIOTECHNOLOGY?

Let’s quickly learn the difference between bioscience and biotechnology; because there is a difference between the disciplines. Bioscience is the science that studies the basics and fundamentals of living organisms (bacteria or viruses), which include their structure and functions, whereas biotechnology deals with the use of living organisms for making useful products, like bacteria can be used for making an antibiotic medicine and viruses can be used for making a vaccine. Here we can say bioscience teaches you about the internal organization of a living organism, whereas biotechnology teaches you how to use these living organisms for human benefit. Interestingly, the fruits of biotechnology are very evident in everyday life, but sometimes we do not realize that we are benefitting from it, such as when we eat yogurt or when we receive a vaccine. Everyone may not be aware of the formal definition of biotechnology, but one thing is certain, we all have benefitted from the products of biotechnology, such as cheese, detergents, biodegradable plastics, and antibiotics.

It is important to know how these useful products are developed and passed on to us for our own benefits. To really appreciate the benefits of the biotechnology; the best example is the making of a cheese. One may argue that cheese making is no big deal, as cheese can be found in almost every city in the world. In addition, what is the relationship between cheese making and biotechnology? Yes, there is a relationship if you know the different ingredients that are required for making cheese. Let us first learn how to make cheese at home, which will give us a fair idea about cheese making, and then we can learn how to make cheese at the industrial level.

Cheese making at home:

• Place one cup of milk in a saucepan; bring the milk slowly to a boil while stirring constantly. It is very important to constantly stir the milk, or it will burn.
• Turn the burner off once the milk is boiling but leave the saucepan on the element or gas grate.
• Add vinegar to the boiling milk, at which point the milk should turn into curd and whey.
• Stir well with a spoon and let it sit on the element for 5–10 min.
• Pass the curd and whey through cheesecloth or a handkerchief to separate the curd from the whey.
• Press the cheese using the cloth to get as much of the moisture out as possible.
• Open the cloth and add a pinch of salt if desired.
• Mix the cheese and salt and then press again to remove any extra moisture.
• Put the cheese in a mold or just leave it in the form of a ball.
• Refrigerate for a while before eating.

It’s so easy to make a cheese at home in a small quantity; in the same way, if you want to make the cheese in a large quantity (thousands of pounds/kilograms) then adding acid-like vinegar is necessary and sometimes bacteria are also used. These starter bacteria convert milk sugars into lactic acid. The same bacteria and the enzymes they produce also play a large role in the eventual flavor of aged cheeses. Most cheeses are made with starter bacteria from the Lactococci, Lactobacilli, or Streptococci families. Swiss starter cultures also include Propionibacterium shermanii, which produces carbon dioxide gas bubbles during aging, giving Swiss cheese (or Emmental) its holes (Figure 1.1). You may now know the application of microorganisms in industrial-level production of cheese, but the role of microorganisms is not limited to cheese making. It has multiple applications in other products as well, such as curd and antibiotic production.

1.1.1 Definitions of Biotechnology

The general definition of biotechnology is a field that involves the use of biological systems or living organisms to manufacture products or develop processes that ultimately benefit humans. The following are some of the most commonly used definitions of biotechnology:

• The use of living organisms (especially microorganisms) in industrial, agricultural, medical, and other technological applications.
• The application of the principles and practices of engineering and technology to the life sciences.

  

  FIGURE 1.1 Schematic representation of cheese making in industry, which involves many steps such as pasteurization, filtration, curd formation, milling, pressing, and ripening of the cheese.

• The use of biological processes to make products.
• The production of genetically modified organisms or the manufacture of products from genetically modified organisms.
• The use of living organisms or their products to make or modify a substance. Biotechnology includes recombinant DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) techniques (genetic engineering) and hybridoma technology.
• A set of biological techniques developed through basic research and applied to research and product development.
• The use of cellular and biomolecular processes to solve problems or make useful products.
• An industrial process that involves the use of biological systems to make monoclonal antibodies and genetically engineered recombinant proteins.
• Development of 3D organs or tissues under in vitro conditions

We should not debate on which of the given definitions is true because all of them are true in their respective ways. For example, if you ask a farmer about what biotechnology is, he or she may say, “Biotechnology is to produce high yield or pest-resistant crops.” If you pose the same question to a doctor, he or she may say, “Biotechnology is about making new vaccines and antibiotics.” If you ask the question to an engineer, he or she may say, “Biotechnology is about designing new diagnostic tools for better understanding of human diseases,” and if you ask the question to a patient suffering from Parkinson’s disease, he or she may say “Biotechnology is about stem-cell-based therapy and has tremendous capability to cure Parkinson’s disease.” All of these different definitions of biotechnology suggest that biotechnology has immensely impacted our daily life with arrays of products. As the field of biotechnology keeps expanding, efforts are being made to subclassify this field into various types. The field of biotechnology may be broadly subclassified into animal, plant, medical, industrial, and environmental biotechnology. Nonetheless there are other emerging fields of biotechnology, such as regenerative medicine (Figure 1.2), biosimilars, pharmacogenomics, bioinformatics, therapeutic proteins, forensic science, synthetic biology, bio-robotics, and biomimetics which we have separately discussed in Chapter 12. Now let’s briefly go through some of the major fields of biotechnology to learn the diverse applications of biotechnology.

FIGURE 1.2 The application of regenerative medicine in reconstruction of bone by using the patient’s own cells.

1.2 MICROBIAL BIOTECHNOLOGY

Microbes are small organisms but possess tremendous capacities in product development. For example, for thousands of years microorganisms have been used in the production of bread, cheese, yogurt, etc. Interestingly, traditional microbial biotechnology began during World War I and resulted in the development of the acetone-butanol and glycerol fermentations, followed by production of vitamins and antibiotics. With the advent of molecular biology and decoding of DNA, microorganisms were used in the development of biopharmaceutical products, such as recombinant insulin (Figure 1.3), recombinant erythropoietin, recombinant human growth hormone, and recombinant interferons. Today, microorganisms are a major contributor in global industry, especially in the dairy, pharmaceutical, biopharmaceutical, food, and chemical industries.

1.3 ANIMAL BIOTECHNOLOGY

Animal biotechnology is the application of scientific and engineering principles to the processing or production of materials from animals or aquatic species to provide research models and to make healthy products. Some examples of animal biotechnology are generation of transgenic animals (animals with one or more genes introduced by human intervention), use of gene knockout technology to generate animals with a specified gene inactivated, production of nearly identical animals by somatic cell nuclear transfer (also referred to as clones), and production of infertile aquatic species. Since the early 1980s, methods have been developed and refined to generate transgenic animals. For example, transgenic livestock and transgenic aquatic species have been generated with increased growth rates, enhanced lean muscle mass, enhanced resistance to disease, or improved use of dietary phosphorous to lessen the environmental impacts of animal manure. Transgenic poultry, swine, goats, and cattle have also been produced to generate large quantities of human proteins in eggs, milk, blood, or urine with the goal of using these products as human pharmaceuticals. Some examples of human pharmaceutical proteins are enzymes, clotting factors, albumin, and antibodies. The major factor limiting the widespread use of transgenic animals in agricultural production systems is the relatively inefficient rate (success rate <10%) of production of transgenic animals.

FIGURE 1.3 Therapeutic or recombinant protein is prepared by inserting the gene of interest into a vector and then into a microorganism resulting in synthesis of recombinant protein.

With the help of genetic tools; i...