What is the Difference Between Transgenesis and Selective Breeding

The key difference between transgenesis and selective breeding is that transgenesis is the process of transferring a gene from one organism to another foreign organism in order to make the recipient have a desirable character of the donor. Meanwhile, selecting breeding is the process of choosing the parents with specific characters to breed together to produce offspring with more desirable characters.

Genetic modification is the process of altering an organisms’ genetic make-up. It can be done by the addition of new genetic material to an organism, such as in transgenesis or without the addition of new genetic material to an organism, such as in selective breeding. Therefore, transgenesis and selective breeding are two different types of genetic modifications.

CONTENTS

1. Overview and Key Difference
2. What is Transgenesis
3. What is Selective Breeding
4. Similarities – Transgenesis and Selective Breeding
5. Transgenesis vs Selective Breeding in Tabular Form
6. Summary – Transgenesis vs Selective Breeding

What is Transgenesis?

Transgenesis is the process of transferring a gene from one organism to another foreign organism in order to make the recipient having a desirable character of the donor. It refers to the process of introducing transgenes from one organism into another. The aim of transgenesis is the resultant transgenic organism exhibiting some new property or characteristic. This process is possible because the genetic code is universal for all living things. In transgenesis,  a gene coding for a desirable character must be first identified. By using modern techniques such as gene chips (microarrays) and DNA sequencing, a gene that codes for a desirable character can be identified.

The target gene should be then isolated from the DNA of a cell. Restriction enzymes can separate out the target gene by cutting from the rest of the DNA of a cell. The fragments of the target gene later should be extracted out through gel electrophoresis and can be identified using a specific DNA probe. Finally, a vector such as a bacterial plasmid is used to transfer the target gene into another organism. Human insulin is a well-known product of transgenesis. However, transgenesis has some unintended consequences and implications on transgenic plants or animals, such as non-target effects of transgenic protein that cause some side effects.

What is Selective Breeding?

Selecting breeding is the process of choosing parents with specific characters to breed together to produce offspring with more desirable characters.  People have selectively bred plants and animals for thousands of years. Some of the examples are crop plants with better yield, ornamental plants with particular flower colours, farm animals producing quality meat, dogs with particular physiques and temperaments, etc. Characteristics of an organism are partly determined through the combination of gene variants. These gene variants are passed from one generation to the next. For example, tall parents produce tall children if they can transfer the combination of tall gene variants to the next generation. Some of the offspring may be even taller than their parents as they inherit a combination of different tall gene variants from each parent.

Furthermore, with repeated selective breeding over generations, this population will get taller and taller. However, there are some problems with selective breeding. Selective breeding often results in a population of animals or plants with similar genetics. Therefore, infectious diseases are more easily spread through genetically similar populations. Moreover, selective breeding involves inbreeding. Inbreeding populations are most probably suffering from genetic conditions caused by recessive gene variants.

What are the Similarities Between Transgenesis and Selective Breeding?

• Transgenesis and selective breeding are two types of genetic modifications.
• These techniques produce new organisms with desired characters.
• Both are artificial methods.
• These techniques influence biodiversity and evolution.

What is the Difference Between Transgenesis and Selective Breeding?

Transgenesis is the process of transferring a gene from one organism to another foreign organism in order to make the recipient bear a desirable character of the donor. Whereas, selecting breeding is the process of choosing parents with specific characters to breed together to produce offspring with more desirable characters. So, this is the key difference between transgenesis and selective breeding. Furthermore, transgenesis introduces the foreign genetic material of an organism into the genome of another organism. On the other hand, selective breeding does not introduce foreign genetic material of an organism into the genome of another organism.

The following chart compiles the differences between transgenesis and selective breeding in tabular form for side by side comparison.

Summary – Transgenesis vs Selective Breeding

Transgenesis and selective breeding are two different types of artificial genetic modifications. Transgenesis is the process of transferring genetic material from one organism to another organism in order to make the recipient bear the desirable characteristics of the donor. On the other hand, selecting breeding is the process of choosing suitable parents with specific traits to breed together to produce offspring with more desirable traits. Thus, this is the summary of what is the difference between transgenesis and selective breeding.

Reference:

1. “Transgenesis.” An Overview | ScienceDirect Topics.
2. “Selective Breeding.” An Overview | ScienceDirect Topics.

Image Courtesy:

1. “Producing Infectious Transgenic Lentivirus” By Peter.Grant.ubc – MS Word (CC BY-SA 4.0) via Commons Wikimedia

2. “Selective breeding plants” By yourgenome (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) via Flickr