Pglo Transformation Lab

Purpose: 

The purpose of this lab is to observe bacterial growth under different conditions and in different environments. 

Introduction:

Genetic transformation is the process of genetic material that is carried by a cell being altered by the incorporation of foreign DNA into its genome. In this experiment, bacteria is going to be transformed by the insertion of a gene that causes the bacteria to glow (pGLO). With this gene, the bacteria should glow green under ultra violet light. Not only does this genetic transformation allow for the bacteria to glow, the pGLO is also resistant to antibiotics. The green fluorescent protein gets switched on by the sugar arabinose. This explains why the bacteria should only glow on plates that contain arabinose on them, but will appear normal on plates without it. 

Methods

Discussion

Gene transformation is when a cell takes in a foreign gene and expresses new DNA. In this lab, we infused the Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP) from a jelly fish along with an antibiotic resistant gene into the DNA of E. coli with the help of a plasmid. Plasmids are circular DNA that usually contain genes for one or more traits. We used the pGLO plasmid which contained the gene for GFP and a gene for resistance to the antibiotic ampicillin as mentioned above. In this lab we had 4 dishes. The first was our control group which held bacteria only provided with LB (food). This plate had growth because it was given food, however the bacteria didn't glow since it was not exposed to the pglo gene. The second plate was al so a control group. It had LB and ampicillin which is an antibiotic (kills bacteria). Therefore there was no growth on this plate because the genes were not exposed to the antibiotic resistant gene. The third plate had LB, and ampicillin, however it was exposed to the plasmid which contained the antibiotic resistant gene. So there was growth, but less than the LB control plate because only some of the bacteria took in the antibiotic gene into their DNA. The last plate had LB, ampicillin, and the pglo gene so there was growth because it had the antibiotic resistant gene, and the bacteria glowed in the dark. Since it took up the pGlo gene.

Conclusion
Overall, we learned how we can mash two different types of DNA together. It was cool to see that just through a simple experiment we could make a bacteria become antibiotic resistant and glow in the dark. Gene transformation is being used recently by scientists to experiment putting specific genes in bacteria to treat certain diseases. It was cool to think that we could do an experiment that professionals are using now to advance science and medicine.