Question

What is the aim of plasmid amplification?

Answer 1

Biotechnology is a field related to Biology that utilizes living systems or organisms. It genetically manipulated organisms to produce useful products. Often microorganisms are utilized for the process.

Complete answer:
The plasmid is an extrachromosomal circular DNA that is double-stranded. It is present commonly in prokaryotic organisms such as Bacteria but is rarely present in eukaryotic cells too. Plasmid amplification primarily aims to increase the number of plasmid copies. Certain multicopy plasmids have the characteristic of replication ability even in the absence of protein synthesis. Which benefits the bacteria by the factor that normal bacterial DNA replication is unable to replicate in the absence of protein synthesis. In the process of bacterial culture during the Bacterial DNA Purification. The process of plasmid amplification is carried out in Escherichia coli cells. The process of plasmid amplification is carried out using Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR).

Note: Polymerase Chain Reaction or PCR was first developed in the 1980s. The method is primarily based upon the ability of the enzyme DNA Polymerase to produce a new DNA strand. Thus extracellular DNA such as Plasmids can also be amplified using PCR. When a template strand is offered, the complementary strand is synthesized by the enzyme. The process is initiated using a primer which is a short RNA strand for initiating the addition of the first nucleotide. At the end of a specific number of cycles, billions of copies of the amplified DNA would be produced. The products are termed Amplicons. The enzyme used predominantly is the Taq DNA Polymerase.