GATE Syllabus for Biotechnology (BT) 2023: Important Topics, Exam Pattern, Previous Year Question Papers

GATE Syllabus for Biotechnology (BT) 2023

GATE Biotechnology paper will have questions from topics:

Section 1 – Engineering Mathematics

• Linear Algebra: Matrix algebra, systems of linear equations, consistency and rank, Eigen values and Eigen vectors. 
• Calculus: Mean value theorems, theorems of integral calculus, partial derivatives, maxima and minima, multiple integrals, Fourier series, vector identities, line, surface and volume integrals, Stokes, Gauss and Green’s theorems. 
• Differential equations: First order equation (linear and nonlinear), second order linear differential equations with constant coefficients, method of variation of parameters, Cauchy’s and Euler’s equations, initial and boundary value problems, solution of partial differential equations: variable separable method. 
• Analysis of complex variables: Analytic functions, Cauchy’s integral theorem and integral formula, Taylor’s and Laurent’s series, residue theorem, solution of integrals. 
• Probability and Statistics: Sampling theorems, conditional probability, mean, median, mode, standard deviation and variance; random variables: discrete and continuous distributions: normal, Poisson and binomial distributions. 
• Numerical Methods: Matrix inversion, solutions of nonlinear algebraic equations, iterative methods for solving differential equations, numerical integration, regression and correlation analysis.

Section 2 – General Biotechnology

• Biochemistry: Biomolecules - structure and function; Biological membranes - structure, membrane channels and pumps, molecular motors, action potential and transport processes; Basic concepts and regulation of metabolism of carbohydrates, lipids, amino acids and nucleic acids; Photosynthesis, respiration and electron transport chain. Enzymes - Classification, catalytic and regulatory strategies; Enzyme kinetics - Michaelis-Menten equation; Enzyme inhibition - competitive, non-competitive and uncompetitive inhibition.
• Microbiology: Bacterial classification and diversity; Microbial Ecology - microbes in marine, freshwater and terrestrial ecosystems; Microbial interactions; Viruses - structure and classification; Methods in microbiology; Microbial growth and nutrition; Nitrogen fixation; Microbial diseases and host-pathogen interactions; Antibiotics and antimicrobial resistance.
• Immunology: Innate and adaptive immunity, humoral and cell mediated immunity; Antibody structure and function; Molecular basis of antibody diversity; T cell and B cell development; Antigen-antibody reaction; Complement; Primary and secondary lymphoid organs; Major histocompatibility complex (MHC); Antigen processing and presentation; Polyclonal and monoclonal antibody; Regulation of immune response; Immune tolerance; Hypersensitivity; Autoimmunity; Graft versus host reaction; Immunization and vaccines.

Section 3 – Genetics, Cellular, and Molecular Biology

• Genetics and Evolutionary Biology: Mendelian inheritance; Gene interaction; Complementation; Linkage, recombination and chromosome mapping; Extra chromosomal inheritance; Microbial genetics - transformation, transduction and conjugation; Horizontal gene transfer and transposable elements; Chromosomal variation; Genetic disorders; Population genetics; Epigenetics; Selection and inheritance; Adaptive and neutral evolution; Genetic drift; Species and speciation.
• Cell Biology: Prokaryotic and eukaryotic cell structure; Cell cycle and cell growth control; Cell-Genetics and Evolutionary Biology: Mendelian inheritance; Gene interaction; Complementation; Linkage, recombination and chromosome mapping; Extra chromosomal inheritance; Microbial genetics - transformation, transduction and conjugation; Horizontal gene transfer and transposable elements; Chromosomal variation; Genetic disorders; Population genetics; Epigenetics; Selection and inheritance; Adaptive and neutral evolution; Genetic drift; Species and speciation.
• Molecular Biology: Molecular structure of genes and chromosomes; Mutations and mutagenesis; Regulation of gene expression; Nucleic acid - replication, transcription, splicing, translation and their regulatory mechanisms; Non-coding and microRNA; RNA interference; DNA damage and repair.

Section 4 – Fundamentals of Biological Engineering

• Engineering principles applied to biological systems: Material and energy balances for reactive and non-reactive systems; Recycle, bypass and purge processes; Stoichiometry of growth and product formation; Degree of reduction, electron balance, theoretical oxygen demand.
• Classical thermodynamics and Bioenergetics: Laws of thermodynamics; Solution thermodynamics; Phase equilibria, reaction equilibria; Ligand binding; Membrane potential; Energetics of metabolic pathways, oxidation and reduction reactions.
• Transport Processes: Newtonian and non-Newtonian fluids, fluid flow - laminar and turbulent; Mixing in bioreactors, mixing time; Molecular diffusion and film theory; Oxygen transfer and uptake in bioreactor, kLa and its measurement; Conductive and convective heat transfer, LMTD, overall heat transfer coefficient; Heat exchangers

Section 5 – Bioprocess Engineering and Process Biotechnology

• Bioreaction engineering: Rate law, zero and first order kinetics; Ideal reactors - batch, mixed flow and plug flow; Enzyme immobilization, diffusion effects - Thiele modulus, effectiveness factor, Damkoehler number; Kinetics of cell growth, substrate utilization and product formation; Structured and unstructured models; Batch, fed-batch and continuous processes; Microbial and enzyme reactors; Optimization and scale up.
• Upstream and Downstream Processing: Media formulation and optimization; Sterilization of air and media; Filtration - membrane filtration, ultrafiltration; Centrifugation - high speed and ultra; Cell disruption; Principles of chromatography - ion exchange, gel filtration, hydrophobic interaction, affinity, GC, HPLC and FPLC; Extraction, adsorption and drying.
• Instrumentation and Process Control: Pressure, temperature and flow measurement devices; Valves; First order and second order systems; Feedback and feed forward control; Types of controllers – proportional, derivative and integral control, tuning of controllers.

Section 6 – Plant, Animal and Microbial Biotechnology

• Plants: Totipotency; Regeneration of plants; Plant growth regulators and elicitors; Tissue culture and cell suspension culture system - methodology, kinetics of growth and nutrient optimization; Production of secondary metabolites; Hairy root culture; Plant products of industrial importance; Artificial seeds; Somaclonal variation; Protoplast, protoplast fusion - somatic hybrid and cybrid; Transgenic plants - direct and indirect methods of gene transfer techniques; Selection marker and reporter gene; Plastid transformation.
• Animals: Culture media composition and growth conditions; Animal cell and tissue preservation; Anchorage and non-anchorage dependent cell culture; Kinetics of cell growth; Micro & macro- carrier culture; Hybridoma technology; Stem cell technology; Animal cloning; Transgenic animals; Knock-out and knock-in animals.
• Microbes: Production of biomass and primary/secondary metabolites - Biofuels, bioplastics, industrial enzymes, antibiotics; Large scale production and purification of recombinant proteins and metabolites; Clinical-, food- and industrial- microbiology; Screening strategies for new products.

Section 7 – Recombinant DNA technology and Other Tools in Biotechnology

• Recombinant DNA technology: Restriction and modification enzymes; Vectors - plasmids, bacteriophage and other viral vectors, cosmids, Ti plasmid, bacterial and yeast artificial chromosomes; Expression vectors; cDNA and genomic DNA library; Gene isolation and cloning, strategies for production of recombinant proteins; Transposons and gene targeting;
• Molecular tools: Polymerase chain reaction; DNA/RNA labelling and sequencing; Southern and northern blotting; In-situ hybridization; DNA fingerprinting, RAPD, RFLP; Site-directed mutagenesis; Gene transfer technologies; CRISPR-Cas; Biosensing and biosensors.
• Analytical tools: Principles of microscopy - light, electron, fluorescent and confocal; Principles of spectroscopy - UV, visible, CD, IR, fluorescence, FT-IR, MS, NMR; Electrophoresis; Micro- arrays; Enzymatic assays; Immunoassays - ELISA, RIA, immunohistochemistry; immunoblotting; Flow cytometry; Whole genome and ChIP sequencing.
• Computational tools: Bioinformatics resources and search tools; Sequence and structure databases; Sequence analysis - sequence file formats, scoring matrices, alignment, phylogeny; Genomics, proteomics, metabolomics; Gene prediction; Functional annotation; Secondary structure and 3D structure prediction; Knowledge discovery in biochemical databases; Metagenomics; Metabolic engineering and systems biology.

Section 8 - General Aptitude 

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GATE Biotechnology (BT) Weightage of Important Topics