How Do I Get into Genetic Engineering?

According to people's wishes to purposefully transform and create biological heredity, the most basic project is to obtain a clone of the target gene or nucleic acid sequence. Isolated or altered genes and nucleic acid sequences cannot reproduce by themselves, and vectors are required to carry them to suitable cells for replication and performance. Commonly used vectors are plasmids, phages and viruses.

Genetic engineering vector

The ideal genetic engineering vector generally has at least the following requirements:

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Plasmids and phage vectors can only propagate in bacteria and cannot meet the needs of eukaryotic DNA recombination. Animal-infected viruses can be engineered as vectors for animal cells. Because animal cell culture and operation are complicated and costly, bacterial plasmid replication initiation sequences are generally placed in viral vector construction. The vector and the foreign sequences carried by the vector can be easily propagated and cloned in bacteria, and then introduced into eukaryotic cells. Viral vectors are commonly used to modify monkey kidney virus SV40 (Simian Virus 40), retroviruses and insect baculoviruses. The purpose of using these viral vectors is to put the gene or sequence of interest into animal cells to express or test their functions Or for gene therapy (see below).

The human genome is very large, about 4 × 109bp. To build and screen human genome libraries, a larger capacity vector is required. Yeast artificial chromosome (YAC) vectors have emerged as the times require. YAC contains the functional sequences of yeast chromosomes (telesome), centromere, and origin of replication. It can insert foreign DNA with a length of 200-500kb. It can be replicated and reproduced in the yeast cell division cycle for cloning. The importance of the human genome research program