The first human hormone produced by recombinant DNA technology is
(a) insulin (b) estrogen (c) thyroxin (d) progesterone.
Answer (a) : The recombinant DNA technological processes have made great impact in the area of health care by mass production of safe and more effective therapeutic drugs. In 1983, Eli Lilly an American company, first prepared two DNA sequences corresponding to A and B chains of human insulin and introduced them in plasmids of Escherichia coli to produce insulin chains. Chains A and B were produced separately, extracted and combined by creating disulfide bonds to form human insulin (humulin).
