Escherichia Colo Lab Report

Transformation in bacteria usually takes place when a bacterial cell accepts strange DNA and integrates to its own DNA. The transformation normally takes place within plasmids, which are tiny circular DNA molecules that have been separate from its own chromosome. The copies of the same plasmid range from 10 to 200 copies within a cell. These copies of plasmids may multiply when the chromosome replicate or multiply independently. One plasmid has a range of 1,000 to 200,000 base pairs. R plasmids are responsible for carrying the gene for resistance to antibiotics e.g. ampicillin, which are normally used in the lab. The normal function of a plasmid is to transport genetic information essential to the survival of the bacteria. (Barnnet, 1995). The plasmid can work as vectors for introducing strange DNA. Restriction enzymes are normally used cut foreign DNA and placed it into the plasmid vectors. This lab used Escherichia coli (E. coli) bacteria (Kok , 19840). This is because Escherichia coli can be simply grown in Luria broth or on agar, and also has a comparatively small genome of five million base pairs.

Strains of E. coil are important in the digestive tract, but others may cause problems in urinary and intestinal tracts. Certain types of E. coli strains show resistance to bacteria which kills antibiotics. The resistance is because of the plasmids. Resistance plasmids are broadly studied and bestow resistance to factors which may hinder growth of the organism. Resistance plasmids signs for proteins which will inactivate the antibiotic affect their reception into the bacteria (Weinreich, 2006). We deal with two different strains of E. coli in this lab i.e. Standard E. coli which lacks resistance plasmid and strain containing a resistance plasmid which has genes that are protecting it from