Which of the following is an example of how biotechnology is used to produce transgenic organisms?

• A. Translocating deer from a large population to a small, isolated population
• B. Inserting jellyfish gene into the genome of different strains of mice
• C. Selectively breeding dogs to maximize specific behaviors
• D. Editing the DNA of rice plants to introduce specific base-pair substitutions

Answer: (B)

Transgenic organisms are created when a gene from a different species is inserted into another species’ genome and expressed there. Inserting a jellyfish gene into the genome of mice exemplifies this because the mouse ends up carrying and potentially expressing a gene that came from jellyfish, crossing species boundaries and producing a new trait through biotechnology. This is a classic demonstration of how biotech moves DNA across species to create organisms with novel properties, which is the essence of being transgenic. The other scenarios don’t involve introducing foreign DNA: moving deer is ecological management, not genetics; selective breeding uses existing genes without cross-species gene transfer; and editing rice to change base pairs typically alters existing rice genes rather than adding a gene from another species, so it isn’t transgenic in the standard sense.