Engineered E. coli bacteria containing recombinant DNA is not dangerous to humans because:

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Engineered E. coli bacteria containing recombinant DNA  is not dangerous to humans because:

BlackTom AI · Accepted Answer

Question restatement: Engineered E. coli bacteria containing recombinant DNA is not dangerous to humans because:

Option 1: 'it is carefully controlled and has never been outside of a P4 containment facility.' This statement asserts that the safety arises from containment in high-biosafety facilities. While containment reduces exposure risk, it is not the core biological reason that makes such bacteria not dangerous to humans; exposure control is about handling, not the inherent properties of the organism.

Option 2: 'it contains preproinsulin, which is not active in humans.' This option introduces a mischaracterization: recombinant E. coli used for producing proteins may carry various genes, but the claim that it contains preproinsulin specifically and that this makes it non-dangerous to humans is not a general or accurate justification. Preproinsulin itself is a precursor of insulin and is not universally relevant to the safety assessment of recombinant bacteria.

Option 3: 'it is incapable of surviving outside well controlled laboratory environments.' This option points to the biological property of the engineered strain: it cannot survive outside controlled conditions. This is a fundamental safety feature of many recombinant strains designed for lab use, as an inability to persist in the environment reduces risk to humans and ecosystems, making exposure unlikely and further reducing danger.

Option 4: 'it cannot survive in the human bloodstream.' While the notion of not surviving in the bloodstream would reduce pathogenic risk, it is more specific than the general safety rationale. A strain that cannot persist in the bloodstream is safer, but the broader and more general reason often cited is environmental survival limitations, which covers exposure scenarios beyond just the bloodstream. This statement may be true for many lab strains but is not the primary universal justification used in the typical safety framing for recombinant bacteria.

In evaluating these options, the most direct and overarching explanation aligns with the idea that the engineered bacteria are designed not to survive outside controlled settings. This intrinsic biological limitation is the core reason they are not dangerous under typical handling and exposure scenarios, compared with containment practices, specificity about a particular protein, or a bloodstream-specific claim.

Putting it together, each option is assessed for how accurately it captures the safety reasoning:
- Option 1 emphasizes containment infrastructure rather than the organism’s inherent properties, which, while important for safety, is not the fundamental biological justification.
- Option 2 attributes safety to a specific, unrelated protein and is scientifically inaccurate as a general claim for safety of recombinant bacteria.
- Option 3 emphasizes the organism’s inability to survive outside controlled environments, reflecting a core biosafety characteristic that limits environmental persistence and potential exposure.
- Option 4 asserts an inability to survive in the human bloodstream, which is a narrower and less general safety rationale than environmental survivability.

Overall, the strongest, most general justification among the options relates to the organism’s inherent inability to persist outside well controlled laboratory environments, reducing risk of environmental exposure and infection in humans.

BME 3 Treating Diabete... Week 8 Recombinant DNA and Production of Insulin

Engineered E. coli bacteria containing recombinant DNA is not dangerous to humans because:

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