Word: plasmids
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...stepped the gene splicers from Genentech, who managed to isolate the gene in the virus that orders up the production of VP3. A molecular fragment containing these instructions was then spliced into a plasmid, or small circular collection of DNA, taken from an E. coli bacterium. Then the plasmid and its "recombined" DNA were inserted back into E. coli. Not only did the recipient bacteria begin cranking out VP3, but all their offspring reproduced the protein as well...
Almost all of E. coli's 4,000 genes are located in a single circular chromosome. But Cohen had isolated some bits of genetic material that float freely in the bacterium outside this main genetic repository. These bits of genetic "small change" are known as plasmids. A plasmid contains as few as three or four genes linked in a small circle, yet it sometimes is crucial to bacterial survival...
...twin breakthroughs?Beyer's surgical enzyme and Cohen's plasmids?opened the door to an extraordinary scientific capability. If they were used together, almost any gene?from a virus, a frog or a man?could be spliced into the plasmid. Cohen named
...genes will be read and translated into protein. So Doty and other researchers are interested in determining what DNA sequence changes accompany changes in production levels of the proteins. "One has to have a probe that is either highly specific or easily labeled," according to Doty. This is where plasmids and genetic engineering comes in. Once a DNA segment is inserted into a bacterial plasmid, the researchers can grow up a supply of it "overnight." This may be used to identify complementary copies of RNA and to determine where sequence changes occur...
Genes from other organisms [3] are inserted into the DNA of E. coli bacteria which copies and decodes DNA rapidly. A ring of DNA--a plasmid--which is transferred between bacteria, is used for the incorporation procedure. It is easily isolated from a bacterial cell [1], cut open [2] and used as a receptor for a foreign gene [4]. The plasmid then carries the inserted DNA into a cell [5] where many copies can be "cloned...