期刊名称:Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
印刷版ISSN:0027-8424
电子版ISSN:1091-6490
出版年度:1976
卷号:73
期号:10
页码:3524-3528
DOI:10.1073/pnas.73.10.3524
语种:English
出版社:The National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
摘要:A novel assay has been developed for in vitro genetic recombination of DNA. Substrate and product DNAs are cleaved with a restriction endonuclease and the resulting fragments are separated by electrophoresis in agarose gels. The substrate DNA has been chosen so that the recombination to be studied deletes a segment of DNA. The remaining DNA gives rise to a unique restriciton fragment, as does the DNA segment that has been removed. The method provides a convenient and physical, rather than genetic, assessment of the conversion of parental to recombinant DNA. This method has been applied to an in vitro system that carries out integrative recombination of bacteriophage lambda. We find that, different molecular forms of DNA tested, closed circular DNA is the only efficient substrate. Linear DNA and three kinds of circular DNA containing interruptions are at best very poor substrates. The implications of this surprising result are discussed. In addition, we show that the in vitro recombination system completes the breaking and rejoining steps of recombination. No stable DNA intermediates involving chiasmata or broken end structures are found.