Explain the various steps involved in the production of artificial insulin.
Genetically engineered insulin: Insulin contains two short polypeptide chains: chain A and chain Blinked together by disulfide bridges. In mammals, insulin is synthesized as a pro-hormone. It contains an extra stretch called C-peptide. C-peptide is absent in the mature insulin and is removed during maturation into insulin. Production of insulin by rDNA techniques was achieved by an American company, Eli Lilly in 1983. It prepared two DNA sequences corresponding to A and B, chains of human insulin, and introduced them in plasmids of E. coli for production. The Aand B chains produced were separated, extracted and combined, by creating disulfide bonds to form human insulin.
