Q.Give any two microbes that are useful in biotechnology.

Two microbes that are useful in biotechnology are Escherichia coli (a bacterium) and Saccharomyces cerevisiae (a yeast). E. coli is widely used as a host for producing recombinant proteins and for gene cloning because it grows quickly and is easy to manipulate. S. cerevisiae, also known as baker's yeast, is used in the production of ethanol, bread, and as a host for expressing eukaryotic proteins. Both are model organisms that h …

Biotechnology, at its heart, is the use of living organisms to make useful products. The microbes that power this field are not random; they are chosen for specific, reliable traits. The NCERT textbook highlights two workhorses that have become indispensable in labs and industries worldwide.

The first is Escherichia coli, often abbreviated as E. coli. This bacterium is the most famous model organism in molecular biology. Why? Because it grows extremely fast on simple, cheap media, its genetics are very well understood, and scientists have developed a vast toolkit to manipulate its DNA. In biotechnology, E. coli is the go-to factory for producing human proteins like insulin. The human gene for insulin is inserted into a plasmid (a small circular DNA molecule), which is then put into E. coli. The bacterium, following the genetic instructions, starts churning out human insulin, which is then purified and used to treat diabetes. This was a landmark achievement — the first ever genetically engineered pharmaceutical product approved for human use.

A different angle: define the criteria for a "good biotech workhorse" first, then pick examples that satisfy them, instead of recalling names directly.

A microbe useful in biotechnology typically needs to: (1) grow very fast and cheaply, (2) be easy to genetically modify/take up foreign DNA, and (3) be well-characterised so its behaviour is predictable at scale. …