Question

A genetically engineered bacteria used for clearing oil spills is
(a) Escherichia coli
(b) Bacillus subtilis
(c) Agrobacterium tumefaciens
(d) Pseudomonas putida

Answer 1

Hint: They are bacteria that normally live in water. They are a Gram-negative, rod-shaped, saprotrophic soil bacterium. They are confirmed to be a Pseudomonas species and placed, along with several other species.

Complete answer:
A genetically modified or engineered bacteria utilized for clearing oil spills is Pseudomonas putida. At the present, four studies species of oil-metabolizing bacteria were well studied to live, but when placed into an oil spill, they oppose one another, limiting the quantity of crude oil that they degrade. The genes needed to degrade oil were transferred on plasmids, which might be carried among species. Through irradiating the modified organism with ultraviolet light after plasmid transfer, Professor Chakrabarty studies a way for genetic cross-linking that secured all four plasmid genes in situ and make a replacement, stable, bacterial species (presently known as Pseudomonas putida) competent of consuming oil one or two orders of magnitude faster than the previous four strains of oil-eating microbes. The new microbe that Chakrabarty termed "multi plasmid hydrocarbon-degrading Pseudomonas," can digest around two-thirds of the hydrocarbons that could be present during a classical oil spill.

Additional information: The bacteria produced international attention when he applied for a patent—the first U.S. patent for a genetically altered organism. (U.S. utility patents had been granted to living organisms before, containing two pure bacterial cultures, patented by Louis Pasteur. Chakrabarty's altered bacterium was granted a patent within the U.K. before the U.S. patent came through.) He was initially denied the patent by the Patent and Trademark Office Database because the patent code was thought to preclude patents on living organisms. The US Court of Customs and Patent Appeals overturned the choice in Chakrabarty's favor, writing.
So, the correct answer is ‘(d) Pseudomonas putida’.

Note: Prof. Chakrabarty's landmark studies have since covered the procedure for several patents on genetically altered micro-organisms and other life forms and catapulted him into the international spotlight. Pseudomonas putida degrades cellulose and chitin and also produces a large number of different antibiotics.