Selection FTW!
Next time someone asks you what studying evolution has ever done for humankind, you can tell them: “It cures AIDS, Biyotch!”
Whether that’s true is unclear at the moment, but still, this is insanely cool stuff. The Cre/lox system is a well-known tool in the molecular biologist’s napsack. It’s a very simple system that developed in the bacteriophage* P1. Many phage have the same basic strategy for replication that HIV does - integrate yourself into the host genome. The host then goes through repeated cycles of replication, copying the phage DNA in the process. At the right time, it expresses Cre recombinases, which recognize the two identical “loxP”† sites flanking the inserted phage genome, neatly excise the intervening viral DNA and stitch together the flanking sequences.
Read the rest of this entry »
posted by saurabh in Biology, Health! | 2 Comments
Loading ...
Powered by FireStats