Organisms with supernatural powers are always fascinating! But they are no more restricted to fiction stories. They are a part of our practical scientific world! Yes! Imagine a mice glowing in the dark, or a plant that fights its deadliest predator! These are not just thoughts, but successful experiments! Today, all thanks to Biotechnology, we have several products with wide applications in the fields of agriculture, environment, healthcare and many more. And what kind of Products are we talking about? Well, in this video, we will mainly be discussing about the transgenic organisms, also known as Genetically Modified organisms, and abbreviated as GMOs. And what do we mean by transgenic or Genetically Modified Organisms? Well, an organism which contains DNA from another organism integrated into its genomic DNA is called Transgenic organism. So will transgenic organisms be different from their original parental forms? Of course yes! A mice will not usually glow in the dark, but when we manipulate it’s genes, then the transgenic mice obtained shows the unusual ability to glow in the dark brightly! Let us get introduced to these examples one by one. To begin with, we have the cotton plant named “Bt cotton” And what does this “BT” mean? Does it stand for “Biotechnology”? Nope! The prefix “BT” stands for “Bacillus thuringiensis”, the bacteria which comes to the rescue of Cotton plants! Bt → Bacillus thuringiensis Have you come across the phrase “The Enemy of my enemy is my friend?” Well, that is exactly the case we are going to glance at! Cotton plants have the biggest enemies in the form of insects. And there are certain bacteria, like Bacillus thuringiensis, which are like the enemies of these insects. They are actually capable of producing certain toxins that can kill these insects. Thus, for the cotton plant, their “enemy’s enemy”, which is the bacterium is like a “friend”. And this relation is exploited by genetic engineers to get cotton modified! Let us find out how! The first thing we need to know is about the protein, and then, about the “gene” which creates the magic! These bacteria produce certain proteins, which are capable of killing various insects like cotton bollworms, beetles and others. These proteins are also called toxins. The genes encoding the toxins is called “cry” gene. And don’t these toxins harm the bacterial cell? Nope! Inside the bacterial cells, these toxins are present in the form of crystals which are inactive by nature. The crystals get activated only when in contact with apt pH conditions, found in the gut of insects! Crystals get activated → Apt pH conditions Hence, the toxins are harmful only to the insects and not the bacterial cells! Now what we do is take the “cry” gene from the bacterium and insert it into the cotton plant through one of the various methods of gene transfer. And once inside the cotton plant, the gene gives rise to proteins, which are present in the inactive crystalised forms in the plant as well. These when consumed by the insects, get activated inside their gut, creating holes in the lining and eventually killing the organism. This is how cotton plants get the ability to naturally fight the threats and get benefited. In this way, transgenic plants can be created using genetic engineering. Various other useful plants that have better resistance capacity, or which have high yield, can be designed using such techniques. Several important and beneficial traits can thus be incorporated in plants. And what about animals? Well, transgenic animals are also a boon to researchers. Let us learn about an interesting transgenic animal in the next video!