Introduction The earliest example of genetic engineering was performed by Gregor Mendel in 1865, when Mendel performed artificial selection on a population of pea plants in the monastery where he lived (http://www.sciencegroup.org.uk/ifgene/history.htm). Once the technological advancements of the 20th century was introduced to the science field, genetic engineering took on a whole new light. Scientist could now transform organisms in ways that no one ever could. E. coli is the perfect test subject for this lab because, as stated by Pearson schools, “E. coli reproduce very rapidly; a single microscopic cell can divide to form a visible colony with millions of cells overnight. Like …show more content…
coli bacteria with a +pGlo gene to make the bacteria antibiotic resistance, have the ability to glow, and the switch to turn on and off the glowing gene. The independent gene for this lab was the addition of the plasmid into the E. coli bacteria, with the dependent variable being the expression of the gene insertion by the ability of the bacteria to grow and glow. There were two control groups in this lab, the first plate (LB agar with -pGlo E. coli) and the second plate (LB+Amp with -pGlo E. coli). There were two control groups in this lab because both a positive and a negative control were needed to be sure that the E. coli were able to grow, and that the ampicillin antibiotic were not expired or faulty. The first plate (LB agar with -pGlo E. coli) was the positive control group because the expected results were that the E. coli would grow, there for making the results positive. The second plate (LB+Amp with -pGlo E. coli) was the negative control group because it was expected that the E. coli would not grow, making the expected results negative. The third and fourth plates (LB+Amp with +pGlo E. coli, and LB+Amp+Ara with +pGlo bacteria respectively) were the experimental groups. the experimental groups tested the hypothesis and involved the changing of the independent variable in controlled …show more content…
coli was placed on the (LB+Amp+Ara) agar, the E. coli would grow in colonies, because not all the bacteria would take up the plasmid. As stated before, the plasmid may not be taken up by all the E. coli, meaning that the bacteria could not be given free range, therefore they could not grow in a lawn. The bacteria would also be able to glow, because the sugar (arabinose) needed for the switch to turn on would be present in the agar, letting the gene be able to present itself in the war. In future experiments, the incubation and the amount of E. coli along with the amount of petri dishes could be doubled or even tripled to gain more data that can be better averaged to make a new conclusion to the