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"Bio-Rad offers stimulating ideas and thought-provoking experiments for students and teachers. The experiments work, the materials are very stable and affordable, and each comes with the support of Bio-Rad scientists. My students were completely engaged in the DNA fingerprinting experiment this year and used it not only to solve the crime that they wrote, but also to map the plasmids using data from their experiment. It was like two or three activities in one!"
Peggy Skinner AP Biology Trainer The Bush School
Download curriculum module BioBusiness in PDF format, developed by the DESTINY Traveling Science Learning Program.
Genetic engineering is the process of manipulating the genetic material of an organism — often to include the DNA from a foreign organism. In this activity, students transform bacteria by introducing a gene from a bioluminescent jellyfish. They use the same procedure for creating "designer proteins" that has led to the explosion of new health treatments, agricultural applications, and environmental solutions.
Jellyfish genes make the invisible — visible! In this lab, students transform bacteria with a gene from the bioluminescent jellyfish Aequorea victoria. Bio-Rad's exclusive pGLO plasmid is constructed with the jellyfish gene that encodes Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP), an antibiotic-resistance gene that encodes beta-lactamase protein and the AraC gene encoding a regulator protein that turns the GFP gene on and off. Bacteria transformed with pGLO are selected by ampicillin resistance, and, when induced to express GFP, the bugs glow fluorescent green under UV light!
Gene regulation. With pGLO, students analyze the growth of bacteria on various media and examine the roles that external and internal factors play in gene regulation.
Gene expression in all organisms is carefully regulated to allow adaptation to differing conditions and to prevent wasteful production of proteins. The bacterial genes encoding the enzymes needed to metabolize the simple sugar arabinose are a perfect example. A promoter region upstream of these genes acts as molecular on/off switch that regulates their expression. The genes are activated only when arabinose is present in the environment. Bio-Rad's pGLO plasmid incorporates the arabinose promoter, but the genes involved in the breakdown of arabinose have been replaced with the jellyfish gene encoding GFP. When bacteria transformed with pGLO are grown in the presence of arabinose, the GFP gene switches on, causing the bacteria to express GFP and to fluoresce brilliant green.
When students genetically reengineer bacteria with the genes from a bioluminescent jellyfish they never forget the central mantra of molecular biology:
DNA > RNA > Protein > Trait — Green Fluorescence!
Download this protocol in PDF format.
Key Kit Features
Lab Preparation Checklist Kit contains sufficient materials for 8 student workstations (2–4 students per workstation).
Kit Contents
Recommended (Optional) Accessories
Click button to download an interactive table for calculating how many kits and refresh kit components to order.
